B   3   315   E315 

THE  ROAMER 

AND 

OTHER  POEMS 

GEORGE  EDWARD 
WOODBERRY 


THE  ROAMER 

AND   OTHER    POEMS 


THE    ROAMER 


AND  OTHER  POEMS 


BY 

GEORGE  EDWARD  WOODBERRY 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,   BRACE  AND  HOWE 
1920 


COPYRIGHT,    I92O,    BY 
HARCOURT,    BRACE   AND   HOWE,    INC. 


Copyright,  1900,  by  "  East  and  West  " 
Copyright.  1917.  by  George  Edward  Woodberry 


THE  QUINN   a   BODEN   COMPANY 
RAHWAY,     N.  J. 


PREFACE 

"  The  Roamer  "  was  begun  immediately  after  the  pub 
lication  of  the  author's  first  verse,  and,  circumstances 
compelling  its  abandonment,  was  laid  aside,  the  first 
two  Books  having  been  completed.  The  last  two  Books 
were  recently  composed.  "  Ideal  Passion  "  was  printed 
in  a  limited  edition,  1917,  intended  for  private  friends, 
and  is  n  7  first  given  to  the  general  public.  The  last 
two  divisions  of  the  volume  bring  together  the  author's 
recent  occasional  verse,  much  of  which  has  appeared  in 
the  press  and  in  magazines.  As  a  whole,  therefore,  it 
will  be  seen,  the  volume,  excepting  the  first  two  Books 
of  "  The  Roamer,"  embodies  the  author's  poetic  work 
of  the  last  five  years. 


42523 


CONTENTS 

THE  ROAMER  PAGE 

Book  I .       .  •''..       .       .  3 

Book  II '.       .       .       .43 

Book  III 74 

Book  IV 108 

IDEAL  PASSION 145 

POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Sonnets  written  in  the  fall  of  1914       ....  189 

Edith  Cavell 196 

Sea  Blood.    Written  on  the  loss  of  the  Ancona      .  197 

1915 198 

On  the  Italian  Front,  1916 199 

The   Bell-Tower 200 

A  Song  of  Sunrise.    Written  on  the  morning  of  the 

Russian  Revolution 201 

Siberia:  the  Return  of  the  Exiles  .....  202 

The   Caucasus .     ' .       .  203 

Ho!  the  Springtime!    Italy,  1917 204 

Justice 207 

The  Message 208 

Fanueil  Hall 209 

The  Eagle 211 

The  Flag 212 

On  the  Departure  of  the  Troops  for  France   .       .  213 

Allies 214 

To  S 217 

Rumania 218 

The  Red   Cross   Christmas 219 

vii 


via  CONTENTS 

POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR — Continued  PAGE 

Armenia 220 

An  Easter  Ode,  1918 222 

To  the  Wingless  Victory.     A  Prayer   .       .       .       .228 

Italy                  230 

The  Rifle.     Italy,   1918 231 

Diaz 232 

Albert  of  Belgium 233 

K-    N-        • •  *M 

Lafayette 235 

SONNETS  AND  LYRICS 

The  Old  House      .            239 

The  Rock 240 

The    Lilies 241 

The    Mallows 242 

To  A.  S.,  on  receiving  his  "  Milton  "  243 

Picquart    .  • 244 

A   Lament 245 

Golden  Fragments 246 

Songs   Unsung 248 

L'Envoy 249 


THE  ROAMER 


THE   ROAMER 
BOOK  I 

HARKEN,  O  outcast  Race,  to  man  outcast, 

Into  the  desert  driven  in  his  youth 

To  lead,  though  mortal,  the  eternal  life! 

Once  more  know  him,  the  child  of  earth  gone  forth, 

In  whom  the  spirit  wakens  uncontrolled, 

Insatiate  hope,  unconquerable  will! 

Now  over-seas  he  bears  the  human  fates; 

He  opens  mighty  lands;  he  lieth  down 

In  the  waste  places.    Harken  to  his  voice, 

In  this  world's  wilderness  his  living  cry, 

The  soul  of  man,  heard  now  in  this  new  verse! 

In  me  he  is  the  passion  perilous ; 

In  me  he  is  the  truth  all-nourishing; 

In  me  he  is  the  never-silent  song, 

In  new  lands  rising.    Watch,  O  Heavenly  Truth! 

Though  past  the  pillars  of  Atlantic  seas 

Another  earth  I  travel  and  new  stars 

In  this  great  continent  that  yokes  the  poles, 

Yet  not  from  thee  removed,  o'er  lake  and  plain 

And  all  along  the  many-coasted  land 

3 


VFKE   ROAMER 

I  lift  the  lone  notes  of  my  native  song, 
And  thee  implore,  and  thy  immortal  strength 
Which  turns  the  breath  of  man  to  adamant; 
Now,  as  when  first  prophet  and  sibyl  sang 
Empire,  and  tribes  gone  forth,  and  rising  fates, 
And  with  dominion  thou  didst  equal  move, 
Watch  where  far  down  the  world  a  later  race, 
Rimmed  round  about  with  vast  discovery, 
Founds  milder  power,  and  shapes  of  sweet,  new 

speech 

The  syllables  of  slow-divulging  time; 
Here  raise  aloft  the  world's  great  hope  anew, 
Proclaiming  man,  who  lives  in  all  men's  lives, 
What  is  endures,  what  shall  be  brings !    O  send 
Omnipotently  forth  thy  word  where  now 
He  sows  the  western  edges  of  the  world 
With  wisdom  and  delight  and  love's  increase, 
Till  earth  shall  lift  one  harvest  from  one  field, 
Reaped  by  one  race  that  shall  one  Father  own, 
Eat  at  one  table,  sleep  beside  one  hearth, 
Confederate  in  blessed  unities, 
One  law,  one  faith,  and  one  prosperity, 
One  labor  looking  to  one  end  divine: 
So  fair  a  star  hangs  in  our  western  skies. 

Wherefore  I  also  toil.    Hear  now,  who  will, 
How  first,  how  last,  I  knew  man's  soul  in  me 


THE    ROAMER 

A  greater  soul,  and  in  my  mortal  self 
Divined  the  Roamer;  speed,  O  vital  verse, 
And  first  the  passion  of  thy  boyhood  tell, 
And  with  thy  youngest  idyls  smooth  the  way! 
With  idyls  life,  with  idyls  song  begins. 

Ah,  then  my  years  expected  the  sweet  bud, 
And  still  put  forth  no  flower,  beside  the  sea. 
Ah,  then  my  tender  years  expected  light, 
And  saw  no  ray;  only  the  wild  reed  mine, 
And  heaven-hunger,  such  as  boyhood  knows, 
In  me  begun,  forecasting  some  fair  shape — 
Frail  as  the  visionary  form  that  comes 
On  sleeping  eyes,  but  love  sleeps  not  in  them 
And  with  desire  draws  holy  souls  from  heaven, — 
Or  so  I  dreamed ;  and  mute  the  wild  reed  slept, 
But  not  my  heart  of  boyhood,  swift  in  love; 
And  unto  me  that  shape  of  dream  was  dear, 
And  dear  the  dream  of  music  in  my  hand. 
Then  as  from  shadowy  pines,  before  light  comes, 
A  solitary  wood-note  bursts  too  soon — 
Some  bird  hath  waked,  and  feels  his  darkened 

wings — 

Low  in  the  hollow  of  the  sea-blown  wood 
I  set  my  fingers  to  the  unknown  stops, 
And  blew;  and  fresh  as  over  quiet  fields 
Rises  the  burden  of  the  bough  and  briar, 


THE   ROAMER 

New  music,  wild  and  sweet,  blown  through  the 

world, 

So  rose  my  idyl;  all  the  valley-side 
Was  hushed,  and  clinging  to  my  lips  the  reed 
Felt  the  first  tremor  of  immortal  breath; 
And  like  an  angel  singing  in  his  birth, 
Aloft  the  lone  and  mounting  melody 
Moved,  darkling,  to  the  bosom  of  the  dawn. 
Then  was  I  'ware  of  him  I  loved  unseen, 
An  image  and  an  unapparent  form, 
A  little  way,  a  little  way,  before. 
Out  of  the  valley,  up  the  slopes  I  sprang     . 
Toward  heaven's  reach;    but  him  I   could  not 

see, 

Whom  my  heart  hungered  after,  following, 
Till,  from  far  heights,  the  pale  and  streaming  East 
Forth  from  its  bosom  gave  the  golden  flood 
To  the  bare  rock  of  beauty;  down  the  pass 
The  shadows  rolled  away;  and  pine  and  cliff 
Dropped  lustre,  and  the  smooth  mist,  like  a  floor, 
Sea-deep  spread  round  me,  lifted  o'er  the  world. 
Then  first,  beside  me,  islanded  in  dawn, 
A  form  of  tender  mould  and  boyish  grace, 
I  saw  him,  like  my  shadow,  stand  and  gaze 
Upon  the  dense  and  mountainous  world  that  lay 
Like  sun-struck  dragons  couched  immutable, 


THE   ROAMER  7 

Vast    broods    of    earth-might    round    about    us 

drawn ; 

And  straight  I  heard  the  challenge  of  old  fame, 
And  in  my  bosom  leaped  the  maiden  heart, 
And  he,  beside  me,  like  my  spirit  shone. 

Then  oft  between  the  pine-ridge  and  the  sea 
I  saw  him,  guarded  round  with  solitude, 
In  meditation  lost  and  deeds  of  dream, 
The  poet's  frailty,  nursing  his  sweet  age 
On  great  achievement  that  eternal  rings, 
And  fame  to  be;  what  was,  heroic  done — 
Man's  graven  record,  or  the  poet's  breath — 
He  was  the  doer  in  his  fantasy; 
And  what  yet  waits  its  passage  to  the  stars, 
In  the  dark  underworld  and  womb  of  time, 
For  which  a  race  in  pain  doth  weary  heaven, 
Smiling  he  stood  in  that  unrisen  morn 
And  lined  it  with  his  glory;  so  he  burned 
In  that  long  passion  of  my  youth  begun, 
From  him  beginning — dark  the  issue  is — 
And  what  was  hope  in  him,  in  me  was  fate. 
So  sweet  in  memory  shines  his  fair  young  face, 
That  still  to  see  youth's  sweetness  gives  me  pain, 
Remembering  all  that  heaven  had  fixed  for  him 
To  do  and  suffer,  though  at  first  he  seemed 
Not  to  inhabit  here,  or  wear  our  earth; 


THE   ROAMER 

He  stood  apart,  nor  knew  I  all  he  was, 

Until  my  years  were  equal  with  love's  hour 

And  life  dissolved  the  mortal  barrier 

That  from  the  spirit  parteth  every  man. 

Yet  not  with  gentleness  that  most  endears 

We  grew  together;  never  morn  nor  eve 

He  gave  himself  all  trembling  to  my  arms, 

Nor  any  precious  seal  set  on  my  lips, 

Nor  used  our  way;  he  saw  another  world; 

More  than  the  wrath  of  God  I  feared  his  eyes. 

Yet  mildly  reigned  his  beauty  in  my  breast, 

And  more  made  fine  my  senses  to  discern 

His  heavenly  portion  in  my  frame  of  earth; 

Until,  as  one  who  in  some  friend's  true  heart 

Trembles  to  find  the  image  of  himself 

Made  pure  and  perfect  in  those  thoughts  of  love, 

Awe  came  upon  me  seeing  in  his  face 

The  lineaments  of  my  own  all  sweetly  changed 

To  that  ideal  I  hope  to  wear  in  heaven. 

So  with  his  passion  blending  more  and  more, 

As  the  dark  earth  when  sinks  the  starry  West, 

Mortal  I  moved  to  meet  eternal  light; 

And,    moving,    dreamed   how   that    young   soul 

should  be 

The  flaming  of  a  torch  across  the  years, 
And  through  the  world  the  rising  of  a  star. 


THE   ROAMER  9 

Ay  me!  but  what  avails  to  nurse  the  soul, 
And  will  the  better  world,  that  heaven  delays? 
When  hath  it  come?     Soon  gathered  round  his 

heart — 

O,  too  familiar  to  this  clouded  breast — 
Immortal  dread,  awe  of  the  alien  powers 
In  this  dark  sphere, — these  vague  infinities 
Of  matter  round  the  solitude  of  mind 
With  menace,  this  dull  crush  of  monstrous  force 
Crumbling    the    dense    compact,    this    far-strown 

world, 

Abysmal  being  without  mete  or  bound, 
With  endless  shadows  roved;   whence  thought, 

alarmed, 

Strains  in  its  orbit  and  its  casing  frame, 
Ranges  the  vast,  and  calls  from  star  to  star, 
With  question  of  this  cold  eternity. 
O  striving  Stress,  O  everlasting  Might, 
In  every  atom  spawning  energy 
And  cradling  life  in  every  blowing  germ, 
Storm  of   the  world,   swift  drift  and  surge  of 

time 

That  lifts  the  swimmer  to  the  rushing  flood 
One  moment's  space,  and  thrusts  him  down  to 

hell, 
And  rolls  the  next  aloft,  while,  age  on  age, 


10  THE   ROAMER 

Millions  of  men  innumerably  spread, 
Faces  along  the  illimitable  wave, 
Float  up,  and  look,  and  sink, — O  star-cold  Space, 
When  hast  thou  answered,  unto  whom,  or  where ! 
O,  sudden  sprang  in  him  the  formless  fear, 
And  swift  the  dark  assault  began  to  mount, 
Motions  of  sorrow,  instincts  of  despair! 
Before  my  boyhood  done,  such  darkness  came — 
Night  in  the  soul;  and  heaviest  on  him, 
Who  most  was  born  to  be  the  child  of  trust, 
Heaviest  on  him  and  earliest,  sank  the  stroke. 
Then,  O,  too  early  chosen,  his  tender  heart 
Broke  into  voice  and  mingled  tears  and  vows. 
He  stares  into  the  waste;  nought  else  he  sees; 
Base  if  he  go  not,  if  he  go  then  rash, 
Yet  must  he  go;  for  such  a  soul  He  made 
Who  made  him  man,  and  set  him  yet  a  child 
Among  his  enemies  exposed  and  left, 
And  gave  his  naked  bosom  to  the  sword, 
His  heart  unfortified  to  sure  defeat, 
And  his  pure  spirit  to  the  bond  of  sin; 
For  high  designs  stern  counsel;  not  with  men 
Who  wheel  with  day  and  night,  and  think  'tis 

fate, 

His  journey  lies;  O,  sent  not  seldom  here, 
Too  mortal  is  he  born  whom  God  doth  choose! 


THE   ROAMER  II 

Ah,  yet  must  fall  on  him  the  heavier  change, 
Which  who  knows  not,  his  soul  hath  never  known 
The  wandering  sea  that  moans  and  mourns  in  man, 
The  melancholy  load  and  charge  of  song, 
Voices  rebellions,  dismal  wailing  loss 
The  paean  of  the  long  betrayal  flung 
Up  from  the  sounding  flood  to  sun  and  stars — 
And  souls  like  waves  move  there,  each  with  its 

cry — 

The  sea  of  life;  he  felt  from  world- wide  woe, 
Vague  breaking  upon  vague,  the  life-song  rise, 
Blind  music,  wandering  o'er  the  face  of  things, 
Heard  in  his  heart,  and  heard  creation  through. 
But  when  the  treason  was,  that  worked  so  sore, 
And  in  himself  he  knew  the  doom  begun, 
And  felt  the  blood  of  man,  is  dark  to. me; 
Only  he  made  him  friends  with  night  and  storm, 
The  sad  woods  roved,  and  paced  the  passionate 

shore, 

And  ever  on  the  desert's  border  hung, 
Disturbed,  distressful,  watched  by  rising  stars. 
Deep  in  his  breast  the  iron  entered  in, 
Savage  and  sudden,  thrust  and  stroke  unseen, 
And  life  went  ebbing  from  his  every  wound. 

Then  by  the  stream  that  girds  the  world  he  sat, 
Looking  on  night,  and  felt  within  him  fear 


12  THE   ROAMER 

Rise  like  a  mist  that  blotteth  out  the  stars. 
Dark  was  the  mind,  the  heart  within  was  dark, 
And  all  his  soul  was  sunk  in  memory. 
What  then  he  was  he  knows  whose  heavy  head 
The  passionless  stupor  of  despair  bows  down 
In  solitary  places  that  he  loved! 
So  mute  among  the  moveless  stones  he  sat, 
And  hid  his  face  within  the  sea's  gray  robe, 
And  heard  obscure  the  roaring  of  the  deep; 
Till  in  the  East  the  red  and  ragged  moon 
Across  the  hollow  waters  and  the  night 
Struck  on  his  eyes  and  he  once  more  was  man. 
O,  sharp  the  eternal  pain  began  to  gnaw! 
Hoarse  the  incessant  trampling  of  the  surf 
Beat  up  the  wind;  athwart  the  western  stars, 
Crag-like,  hung  storm,  and  all  its  heights  were 

fire; 

And  midway  of  the  waste,  'twixt  tossing  seas 
And  those  dark  pastures  of  the  roving  flame, 
No  life  but  his, — and  his  a  life  bereft, 
Brooding,  and  tranced,  and  full  of  fantasy. 
The  black  marsh  and  the  mounded  sand  stood 

still; 
Old    willows    whispered    near;    the    beach-grass 

sighed, 
In  the  low  moonshine  rustling  its  thin  blades, 


THE   ROAMER  13 

And  ceased;  and  Nature's  loneliness  was  there 
That  fills  the  desert  where  God  talks  with  man. 
Scarce  was  the  soul  reseated  on  her  throne; 
Still  near  the  dark  relapse  he  suffered  doubt; 
Still  did  he  seem  to  seek  remembered  light, 
With  mortal  senses  wakened,  seemed  to  hear 
Some  far-off  rally  of  great  souls  in  death 
From  fields  of  heroes  fallen;  and  his  gaze, 
Loaded  with  all  divine  expectancy, 
Was  fastened  as  a  spirit's  where  he  saw 
Those  thunder-brows  of  storm;   o'er  him  they 

loomed 
Like  mountains   fanged,   upon  some   desperate 

coast, 

Whereto  the  sailor  drifts  with  asking  looks 
And  superstition;  and  upon  him  came 
That   strangeness   round   the  heart   that   poets 

know, 

And  in  the  swift  arrest  of  sleepless  hope 
Straightway  he  trembled;  on  that  chain  unloosed 
The  lightning  burst  in  white  and  washing  seas, 
Pale-coursing    floods;    and,    cloven    with    bolts 

oblique, 

The  vaporous  summits  swam  in  fiery  air, 
Chasm  and  cliff  dividing;  pass  in  pass, 
Gulf  after  gulf,  deep-trenched,  interminable, 


14  THE   ROAMER 

With  caverned  vale  on  vale,  the  vast  defile 
Leapt  up   night's   core;    and  like  a   man  who 

shakes 

With  hope  of  what  he  fears,  he  saw,  far  off, 
The  darkness,  gathering  up  from  the  wide  world 
In  his  forecasting  heart,  take  awful  shape 
Upon  the  burning  glare;  terrific  gloom 
Stood   on   the   mountains,   black   with   dragon- 
coils, — 

The  vision  that  he  dreamed,  the  hope  he  dared, 
Since  from  the  angelic  flight  of  innocent  years 
There  stooped  and  touched  his  lips  such  rosy  flame 
That  God's  might  in  him  cannot  ever  die. 
0,  how  he  kindled  at  the  very  foe 
Made  instant  visible!   the  fabled  place, 
Whose  horror  crests  the  lone  eternal  steep, 
The  goal  of  lost  adventure,  goal  and  grave! 
There,  by  the  slope,  and  worming  o'er  the  edge, 
The  narrow  track  of  noble  peril  ran; 
And,  thinly  springing,  many  a  lonely  sheaf 
Of  beamy  blades  and  starry-dipping  points 
Flashed  back  the  battle  of  the  dying  world. 
He  saw — he  sprang — he  heard  the  challenge  peal, 
Caught  like  the  mighty  blast  of  Roland  dead 
Far-blown  from  standards  of  the  fallen  Christ; 
And  light  overflowed  within  him,  light  long  sought, 


THE   ROAMER 

From  the  old  sources  gushing,  light  divine, 
Whose  piercing  revelation  nought  obstructs, 
Created  or  imagined  or  devised, 
The  masks  of  mimicry  or  vestures  true, 
Earth's   massy   mould   or   the   dark   breast  of 

man. 

As  one  whose  fixed  soul  settles  to  its  hate, 
A  moment  on  the  world's  dismay  he  looked, 
And  felt  the  strength  within  him  knit  and  lock; 
Then  slow  a  myriad  glooms  expanding  swung — 
Far  off  they  knew  their  prey — and,  vulture-like, 
Their  grim  and  soundless  welcome  fell  on  him. 
Darkness,  and  blasts  that  made  the  willows  white, 
Blinded  his  spirit;  moaning  were  the  woods 
With  tempest,  and  the  heavy-folded  storm 
Lifted  its  head  and  breathed  against  the  stars. 
Out  o'er  the  sea  he  marked  the  moon  grown 

bright; 

On  isle  and  headland  and  the  long  gray  beach — 
His  home  when  home  was  his — once  more  he 

gazed; 

How  many  sweet  delights  in  one  look  died! 
And  slanting  fell  the  silver-shafted  rain, 
Mist  on  the  waters,  smoke  upon  the  sand, 
And  now  the  loud  winds  mingled  with  the  sea; 
But  he  was  westward  gone,  his  heart  in  heaven. 


1 6  THE   ROAMER 

So  was  he  driven  forth  and  out  from  men. 
Then  I  the  shadow  seemed,  and  he  the  one 
Who  truly  lived;  and  since  it  so  was  ruled, 
And  in  my  bosom  lodges  all  his  woe, 
I  build  the  Song,  unheard  except  by  me, 
That  rises  in  his  heart;  and  with  his  voice, 
Whose  common  words  dropped  singing  from  his 

lips, 
My  own  will  echo.    Wherefore,  yet  once  more, 

0  Muse  severe,  who  hast  in  heavenly  charge 
My  footsteps  lest  I  fall,  not  without  hope 
Before  the  altar  of  thy  ancient  fire 

With  olden  usage,  holy  reverence, 

1  come,  and  lay  the  ever-youthful  verse, 
His  music,  and  invoke  the  Heavenly  Mind: 
Even  Thee,  who,  when  this  whirling  world  began 
Didst  loose  the  music  of  ten  thousand  spheres 
In  one  full  voice  that  sang,  and  ever  sings, 
Glory  to  God :  with  notes  below  that  strain — 
From  Thy  great  harmony  how  far  removed! — 
The  wrath  of  life  I  sing,  the  spirit's  woe, 

Our  realm  of  ruin;  and  him  I  go  to  meet, 
The  wrestling  angel  who  doth  wield  this  world 
With  mighty  question  in  the  soul  of  man 
Till  God  shall  arbitrate  that  argument, 
Now  dark  and  doubtful;  doubtful  not,  nor  dark, 


THE   ROAMER  17 

When  to  the  littleness  of  mortal  act 
His  wisdom  the  eternal  issue  joins. 
O,  harken!  we  are  young;  we  cry  for  light, 
Youth's  cry;  but  wisdom  is  an  ancient  thing. 
O,  raise  me  fallen,  and  restore  me  lost, 
That  I,  adventuring  the  great  defeat, 
May  in  the  courts  of  heaven  at  last  unhelm, 
And  in  Christ's  treasury  repose  my  sword! 

Now  the  ninth  year  declining  showed  a  pass 
Deep  sunk,  whose  black  and  monstrous  horns 

transfixed 

The  element  serene;  far  from  that  shade 
Roved  the  cold  moon,  and  showed  the  savage 

steep, 

Whose  secret  heights,  untraveled  by  man's  eye, 
Only  the  majesty  of  heaven  stayed 
With  bounds,  and  to  the  wild  Sierra's  snows 
Their  starry  limit  set;  here  was  he  come. 
So  far  his  soul  had  wandered  from  its  youth, 
So  long  endured  in  pain  the  stroke  without, 
The  change  within;  and  ever  at  his  heart 
Gnawed  the  slow  death ;  if  thou  requirest  more, 
Thy  own  breast  ask,  nor  search  another's  wounds. 
Years  rose  and  set,  but  he  was  shelterless — 
A  man  unknown  save  to  the  heavenly  powers ; 
Alone  he  was,  except  in  memory, 


1 8  THE   ROAMER 

And  lost,  but  that  the  visionary  sense, 

His  guiding  birthright,  visited  the  dark 

And  drew  him  where  the  Will  Divine  would  lead ; 

Through  woe,  and  want,  and  wastes  of  all  neglect, 

Remorseless  realms,  the  tracts  of  base  distress, 

The  wilds  of  thought,  the  deserts  of  desire; 

And  oft  behind  he  came  who  dwelleth  there, 

The  Whisperer  of  the  wildernesses  lost, 

O,  winning  was  his  voice,  and  wise  his  craft, 

His  early  harmonies  not  all  forgot, 

That  once  the  hymns  of  heaven  had  paused  to 

hear; 

The  fluting  of  bird-throated  winds  of  morn, 
The  sighing  reed  of  memory  at  eve, 
Hope  in  the  soul  and  in  the  heart  regret ; 
In  loveliest  things  deepest  his  deep  disguise. 
The  gentle  heart  he  sang,  its  own  delight, 
Virtue,  the  conscious  nobleness  of  life, 
Knowledge,  man's  earthly  immortality; 
And  on  the  god's  own  lyre,  divinely  hymned, 
Joy,  beauty,  truth,  and  love,  and  noble  fame 
Sprang  ever,  and  the  feigning  Muses  danced, 
And,  with  the  song  consenting,  Nature  moved. 
And  oft  the  Roamer  slipped,  and  oft  he  fell 
With  rose-snared  feet,  and  night  came  on  the  plain; 
But  duly  would  the  evening  star  come  forth, 


THE   ROAMER  19 

Making  a  third  where  he  with  memory  sat 
Keeping  o'er  beauty  dead  eternal  watch, 
And,  shining,  lift  his  dry  eyes  from  the  ground, 
And  lull  the  venom  feeding  at  his  heart; 
Such  virtue  did  it  draw  from  other  days; 
And  with  its  orb  his  lids  sank  down  in  sleep, 
The  soul  within  him  slumbering,  and  dear  light 
From  eyes  that  cannot  mourn  fell  on  his  breast, 
And  under  morning  stars  he  urged  his  way; 
And  roaming  sang;  but  not  the  song  of  prime, — 
A  music  of  the  darkened  fields  of  night, 
Earth-sorrow,  and  the  wandering  cries  of  night: 

"  O  still  expectant  band  of  singing  youth, 
Who  from  the  rose  of  dawn  steal  prophecy 
And  holy  hope,  and  chanting  triumph  go, 
Filling  the  morning  air  with  sacred  names! 
O  fortunate  if  in  your  faith  ye  die, 
While  yet  the  sun-flush  leaps  from  mount  to 

mount, 

And  glory's  purpose  dreams  upon  your  brows! 
O,  one  with  them,  me  too  desire  has  raised 
To  fly  beyond  the  sensual  reach  of  man 
And  break  the  bounds  of  earth's  prosperity! 
When  hath  their  virtue  shrunk  to  Nature's  will? 
And  what  their  profit — do  they  grow  and  thrive? 


20  THE   ROAMER 

In  every  land  they  lay  them  down  to  die. 
Woe  to  the  remnant  of  the  noble  band! 
The  most  are  dead  who  that  dear  music  built — 
Their  hymns  shall  be  a  nation's  memory. 
The  few  ride  on,  their  lips  too  firm  for  song; 
On  many  a  lonely  field  they  find  how  hard 
The  bright  rebellion  is  that  showed  so  fair 
'Gainst  this  world's  wrong;  now,  taught  within, 

they  learn 
What  might  it  takes  to  wield  a  heavenly  sword!  " 

He  could  not  stay  the  spirit's  wandering  cries, 
The  music  of  the  breaking  heart  of  man, 
Made  hoarse  by  passion  now,  with  grief  grown 
stern: 

"  Is  God  then  weary?  has  the  flaming  sphere, 
Belted  with  burning  noons  and  starred  with  night, 
Paused  in  its  revolution  in  the  deep? 
And  that  young  spirit  that  there  stands  impris 
oned, 

Throned  in  the  sapphire  of  crystalline  light, 
Or  in  the  starry  concave  of  deep  sleep 
Reposes,  till  new  dawn  with  rose-flushed  dreams 
Kisses  his  eyelids  wide — shall  he  be  stricken, 
Creation's  precious  jewel,  heart  and  eye 


THE    ROAMER  21 

Of  all  that  is — disrealmed  and  headlong  cast, 
And,  prone  in  whirling  fate  and  unplumbed  night,- 
Fall  with  a  world  unhinged?  because  His  will, 
Who  works  in  awful  secrecy  of  change, 
Conceives,  creates,  but  knows  not  to  preserve? 
The  Hand  that  fused  the  obscure  elements 
And  cast  the  mould  of  Nature — does  it  tire? 
When  hath  He  called  thy  shoulder  to  the  wheel? 
When  hath  He  sought  thy  door?  or  sued  to  thee 
For  thy  alliance?  strength  or  counsel  craved? 
O  insolent!  thinking  to  help  thy  God!  " 

He  sang  no  more,  but  silent  was  his  heart; 
Nor  music  knew,  save,  as  one  hears  in  sleep 
The  wild  wind  sighing  in  an  outer  world, 
He  heard  around  him  earth's  old  cradle-song 
Of  wood  and  wave,  life's  grieving  undertones; 
Or  the  deep  chord  of  color,  or  lyric  form, 
Motionless  charm,  with  sudden  piercing  pain 
Made  his  blood  wild;  and  if  at  times  there  woke 
Rapture  of  heart  and  ecstasy  of  soul, 
They  were  the  spirit's  intense  agony; 
And  earth  more  beautiful,  and  love  more  sweet, 
Were  unto  him  increase  of  loneliness 
The  long,  long  years.     O,  wherefore  should  he 
sing! 


22  THE   ROAMER 

Many  the  lands  he  saw,  the  seas  he  ploughed, 
Seeking  to  find,  wherever  man  had  been, 
The  ways  of  beauty  and  the  face  of  love; 
But  evil  things  he  found, — evermore  saw 
How  human  wisdom  like  a  suppliant  bowed, 
How  human  love,  sad-eyed,  did  lift  her  prayer; 
He  could  not  slay  the  pity  at  his  heart 
To  gladden  in  himself;  he  could  not  still 
The  noble  strife  of  thought  to  gain  his  peace. 
So  struck  the  world's  life  in  his  single  breast, 
And  set  his  nature  with  itself  at  war, 
That  half  he  was  knew  not  the  other  half, 
But,  each  to  other,  heart  and  mind,  moved  false, 
Though  to  itself  each  true,  as  conscience  bade; 
Such  discord  ruled ;  oft  to  himself  he  seemed 
Some  unbelieving  knower  of  things  true, 
Some  loveless  lover  of  things  beautiful, 
Some  godless  worshipper  of  things  divine; 
And  beauty  without  joy,  truth  without  faith, 
All  holy  sanctities  made  soulless  things, 
Contrary  currents,  spun  a  whirl  wherein 
Sank  action,  passion,  meditation  down 
Lost  in  himself;  then,  as  the  poets  tell 
Of  that  first  strangeness  of  the  world  to  sense 
In  early  boyhood  when  the  swooning  earth 
Drifts  off  unreal,  and  hard  they  grip  the  ground, 


THE   ROAMER  23 

Before  his  eyes  all  fixed,  corporeal  things 
Melted  to  vision,  his  habitual  world; 
And  all  experience  to  his  hand  was  clay, 
The  stuff  of  life,  wherein  his  moulding  thought 
Mysterious  moved,  and  fashioned,  like  a  god's, — 
The  poet's  art — instinctive  in  his  life, 
Not  for  the  world,  but  his  own  natural  breath 
Whereby  he  greatened  and  grew  into  man, 
True  man  and  whole,  at  one  with  this  dark  frame, 
By  penetration  mastering  the  sphere 
In  secret  study,  and  at  one  with  man, 
Merging  with  men  by  love  and  sympathy 
And  old  imagination's  fusing  might 
Confederating  man  in  human  fate. 

Now  on  he  bore  unto  the  place  of  dread, 
Youth  gone  and  manhood  come;   soon  should 

his  soul 

Encounter  fate;  slowly  those  mountains  rose, 
And  morning  turned  to  night  upon  their  slopes, 
And  in  their  shadow  now  the  Roamer  moved, 
And  nothing  else  but  that  great  vision  saw 
Of  earth  or  heaven  or  any  human  face. 
Up  soared  aloft  the  lone  eternal  steep; 
He  knew  the  Range  that  borders  on  the  night — 
To  North  and  South  its  summits  blocked  the  sky, 
Before  in  silence  stood  its  awful  front; 


24  THE   ROAMER 

And,  irresistible,  the  terror  fell, 
And,  irrepressible,  the  longing  broke, — 
Terror  that  seizes  on  the  spirit  spent, 
Longing  that  swells  within  the  homeless  heart, 
To  yield  the  soul's  adventure  and  the  search, 
To  kiss  our  mother-earth,  and  so  to  end; 
And  o'er  the  long  years  trembling  came  the 

song 

From  that  fair  valley  where  his  joy  began, 
And  bird-like  beat  against  his  prison  bars: 

"  The  new  grass  springs,  and  red  the  willow 

glows; 
O'er  fallen  showers,  sweet-breathed,  the  rainbow 

smiles, 

And  sunset  floods  the  fields;  as  in  a  lake 
Reflected  lies  the  bow  along  the  grass 
Rain-beaded,  and  is  brighter  in  the  grass 
It  lies  on;  in  the  black  loam  gleams  the  plough; 
And  all  the  land  is  freshened  with  the  rain. 
Now  twilight  falls,  star-clear;  the  flowers  shut; 
The  hills  shine  low — O,  wilt  thou  never  come? 
The  woods  oblivious,  venerable,  dim, 
Loved  by  the  winds,  and  loved  by  quiet  stars, 
Listen  for  thee  as  for  the  feet  of  spring, 
And  '  O  sweet  truant '  cry  and  cry  in  vain ; 


THE   ROAMER  25 

'  The  singing  birds  are  come,  but  not  thy  voice;  ' 
And  to  the  sea  they  send  their  fragrant  breath — 
'  Roams  now  the  Child  in  thy  dear  charge '  they 

call; 

And  voiceless  is  the  beach,  and  echo  flown; 
And  Ocean's  self,  whose  benedictions  move 
Still  blessed  in  thy  blood,  sets  in  to  shore, 
And  landward  calls  the  wandering  waves  with 

him; 

But  One  no  more  he  shepherds  whom  he  loved. 
O,  thou  ungrateful,  why  dost  thou  delay? 
Too  far  into  the  West  thy  roaming  is! 
Too  long  upon  thy  ocean-cherished  eyes, 
Brown,  bleak,  and  bare,  withers  the  wind-blown 

waste; 

No  fresh-turned  field,  no  glade  of  violets  there, 
Nor  far  gleams  of  the  emerald  winter-wheat, 
Nor  drifts  of  orchard-blossoms  on  the  hills, 
Nor  garden-plot,  nor  tree,  nor  lilac-spray! 
Now  homeward  through  the  moonlight-darkened 

fields 

The  lover  goes;  the  fire-flies  flash;  but  he 
Sees  one  sweet  face  that  held  the  rosy  West " — 

As  one  who  thinks  of  her  he  may  not  love, 
And  feels  his  eyes  o'erbrim  with  wasted  light, 


26  THE    ROAMER 

He  sighed,  and,  sighing,  kept  the  herbless  way. 
Beneath  the  gorge  a  stronger  music  rose, 
And  swept  a  noble  anger  from  the  strings, 
The  chord  of  glory  smote, — loud  rang  the  song: 

"  Ah  far  behind,  ah  far  behind  thee  rise 
The  towered  cities  where  the  people  toil, 
Builders  of  life,  as  their  dead  fathers  were; 
And,  as  their  fathers,  still  they  seek  the  man 
Heroic,  framed  for  action,  loving  Christ; 
The  laurel  withers  while  the  tribune  waits; 
He  fears,  nor  guesses  how  his  thought  shall  burst, 
The  hope  that  gathers  in  ten  thousand  hearts, 
The  sun-like  deed  that  blesses  half  the  world! 
Weak  is  his  single  might,  but  strong  is  man's, 
And  giant-like  bears  up  from  age  to  age 
The  starry  load.    O,  let  the  burden  fall! 
Weep,  O  lost  people,  for  the  Leader  lost, 
Into  the  desert  gone,  the  forfeiter! 
His  heart  shall  dry,  his  dead  soul  drags  him 

down; 

The  plague  shall  prosper  him  who  hath  forgot 
The  cords  of  birth,  of  country,  and  of  kind, 
The  bonds  unforced  and  mystery  of  love, 
The  heaven-conjoined  league,  the  state  to  be! 
Friendless  he  goes,  nor  gives  his  brother  aid; 


THE   ROAMER  27 

Tribeless,  his  ancient  heritage  betrayed; 
Alone,  he  is  belittled  to  himself! 
O,  heavily  fate's  scorn  shall  fall  on  him; 
Far  in  the  waste  upon  his  track  prowls  death; 
Unmourned  he  drops;  unburied  shall  he  lie; 
The  wild  beast's  portion  and  the  vulture's  perch; 
The  outcast,  whitening  in  the  passing  winds; 
The  fool,  erased  from  human  memory!  " 

"  All  ye  remembered  years,  upbear  me  now!  " 
The  Roamer  cried,  descending  down  the  dark; 
And  he  was  shut  in  that  tremendous  pass 
Whose  exit  lay  on  sky-hung  capes  unknown, 
On  seas  of  death  perchance;  for  well  he  knew 
The  frailty  that  the  wasting  years  had  wrought, 
And  his   stern  need,   0,  not   of  youth's  green 

strength 

Undisciplined,  but  that  all-secret  proof 
Which  from  defeat  its  perfect  temper  takes, — 
The  wisdom  of  how  much  the  weak  can  dare ; 
And  he  had  learned  in  what  close  mail  he  goes, 
How  steadfast,  who  doth  own  his  ruin  just, 
But  dares  despair  not  of  the  deeds  to  be. 
The  hollow   track   fell   downward   through   the 

gulch, 
By  dropping  eaves  and  cones  of  shadow  swept; 


28  THE   ROAMER 

And  straightway  to  a  sinking  gulf  it  came, 
Tortuous  and  vague,  with  glimpses  of  the  moon 
Seaming  the  rock  far  on;  sheer  from  the  pit 
The  wall  adverse,  one  bulging  precipice, 
With  random  ledges  ribbed  of  pine  and  fir, 
Struck  heaven,  and  eclipsed  the  highest  stars; 
Upon  the  hither  side  the  fissure  hugged 
The  scaling  way,  and  from  its  hungry  gloom, 
That  felt  the  beam  of  light  in  his  young  eyes, 
The  blind  deep  seemed  to  heave  its  wandering 

arms. 

Upon  the  brink  profound  his  cold  hand  clung, 
Now,  past  the  jut,  pursued  the  crumbled  shelf, 
And  won  beyond,  where  cliffs  retreating  rolled 
A  vast  moraine,  steep-furrowed  by  old  floods — 
Far-reaching  swells,  like  billowy  seas  aslant, 
Where  many  a  rocky  bed  poured  headlong  down ; 
And  higher  up  the  swaying  slopes  he  rose, 
And  further  to  the  rent  the  rough  slide  fell, 
O'er  which  the  loose  stones  clattered,  heard  no 

more. 
The  winds  dropped  down;  black  clouds  like  bars 

shot  o'er; 

And,  opposite,  the  pine-sheathed  mountain  moaned. 
On  many  a  mortal  death  he  set  his  foot; 
Not  these  he  feared;  he  feared  the  heart  within; 


THE   ROAMER  29 

Treason  and  guile  he  feared,  and  silent  arms. 
Then  stooped  the  foe,  no  more  as  when  he  shone 
Upon  the  front  and  promise  of  this  world 
The  morning  star ;  nor  when  in  gloom  he  came, 
Not  less  majestic  than  the  eternal  force 
And  regnancy  of  Nature;  dark  with  peril, 
And  to  the  death  engaged,  his  war  drew  on, 
Winding  like  thought  within  the  doubtful  brain, 
Warping  imagination  to  his  will, 
Transforming  to  his  semblance  every  sense; 
And  in  the  spirit,  ere  the  mortal  throe, 
Failure  foreseen,  and  scorn  to  be  betrayed, 
The  yearning  of  the  long  impetuous  years 
To  loathing  turned,  the  dying  flame  of  hope 
Leaping  in  anger  at  the  long  deceit; 
And  utterance  indistinguishable  arose, 
That  sometimes  on  the  waking  sense  alarmed 
Strikes  undetermined  whether  thought  or  sound; 
From  crag  and  cleft  "  this  air-built  goal  "  it  shot, 
Doubtful,  and  fled  upon  the  vagrant  gust; 
"  Courage,"  it  shrieked,  and  leaped  in  the  abyss ; 
"  The  hounds  of  vengeance  on  his  track  are  hot, 
Therefore  he  hastes,"  it  struck  the  rock  behind. 
The  lonely  steep  grew  spectral  to  his  gaze; 
He  seemed  to  see  them  spring  from  cirque  and 
cairn, 


30  THE   ROAMER 

Who   perished   here    at   last, — some,    trembling 

things, 

Dropped  from  the  talons  of  the  heavenly  bird, 
Conscience,  whose  quarry  is  the  gentle  heart; 
Some,  blown  by  folly  or  haled  on  by  crime; 
Some,  led  by  lights  that  seemed  earth's  morning 

stars, 

Spirits  of  joyful  trust,  whom  most  he  loved, 
Forerunners  of  his  hope;  all  darkly  there, 
Risen  from  the  storm-bared  rock  where  they  had 

sunk, 

With  presages  of  woe,  sad  warning,  stood; 
And  still  the  apprehensive  heart  of  man, 
That  will  not  all  obey,  brooded  within. 
And  long  the  Mocker  warred,  whom  all  men 

know, 

To  make  illusion  of  his  lonely  trust, 
And  ill  foreboding  of  his  broken  life, 
And  dark  suggestion  of  the  woe  within; 
Now  he  unrolled  dead  time's  monotony, 
The  jester's  scroll  inscribed  with  golden  tales 
Of  noble  spirits  in  their  ecstasy 
Destroyed ;  and  now  he  showed  the  peopled  lands, 
The  world  of  men,  the  pity  and  the  woe, 
Shame,  penury,  crime,  folly,  and  ill  desire, 
The  faiths  that  were,  and  last  the  pallid  Christ, 


THE   ROAMER  31 

And  gray  despair  re-settling  on  the  world; 
Till  on  that  slope,  as  from  the  visioned  mount, 
The  Roamer  saw  the  kingdoms  of  this  world, 
O,  not  for  glorious  conquest,  but  despair, — 
Craven  and  conqueror  leveled  in  contempt, 
Him  foolishest  who  most  would  save  the  world! 
The  moon  dropped  down  behind  the  shoulder 
ing  rocks; 

The  gauntlet  narrowed  on;  the  cliffs  closed  in, 
Age-shattered  spurs  compact  of  rocky  spires, 
Slim  monoliths  and  boulder-piled  towers, 
Fantastic  masonry — earth's  nakedness — 
Dark  colored  veins  of  purple  porphyry, 
Volcanic  thrusts,  dull  spots  of  hematite, 
Chaotic  sediment;  there,  as  he  stood, 
He  held  the  skull  of  Nature  in  his  hand 
Musing,  and  curiously  turned  it  o'er; 
And  versed  he  was  to  read  what  there  is  found — 
For  some  is  known,  and  some  is  darkly  guessed — 
The  cosmic  tale  that  vaunts  its  ignorance, 
No  chaos,  no  catastrophe,  no  more 
But  definite  order  in  indefinite  time, 
Events,  successions,  processes,  fixed  change. 
He  touched  the  gray  grooves  of  the  icy  flood, 
The  delicate  print  of  tropic  fern  and  flower, 
Strange  petrifactions  of  the  forest ;  saw, 


32  THE   ROAMER 

So  were  his  eyes  anointed  with  their  lore, 
The  bones  of  mammoth  bedded  in  the  clay, 
Reptilian  birds,  the  horse's  five-fold  hoof, 
The  buried  drift  of  antenatal  earth, 
Transparent  ruin;  backward  spun  the  orb, 
Whirled  through  the  seethe  and  steam  of  fusing 

fire, 

Metallic  vapors  of  the  molten  globe, 
The  planetary  star,  the  comet  mist, 
The  sun-belt  meteoric — fleece  and  flame; 
And  finer  than  all  vision  probed  his  thought, 
Bared  Nature's  pulse,  told  the  electric  throb 
Like  his  own  blood,  beats  of  ethereal  force, 
Laying  his  finger  on  the  element. 
Then,  startled,  he  remembered  what  man  is, 
Hidden  in  this  dark  corner  of  chilled  space; 
His  history  with  all  its  circumstance, 
Races,  religions,  policies,  archives 
Of  scriptured  wisdom,  monumental  war, 
The  passing  of  a  grain  of  that  gray  sand 
That  measures  Nature's  period, — a  drop 
That  falls  within  the  glacier's  blue  crevasse, 
While  the  slow  frozen  motion  creeps  along 
Through  ages,  and  the  sun  expires  in  frost. 

Death-cold  he  turned;  the  leaping  trail  abrupt 
Sharp  to  the  right  struck  up  the  mountain's  face; 


THE    ROAMER  33 

By  matted  vines  he  hung  above  the  fall; 
By  jag,  and  cranny,  and  rock-withered  root, 
From  doubtful  hold  to  dangerous  footing  passed; 
Nor  less  did  Fraud  mount  with  him  unperceived. 
At  last  upon  the  topmost  naked  ridge, 
Between  the  great  seam  and  the  hanging  bank, 
He  sank  for  rest,  feeling  his  strength  at  ebb. 
The  lower  pass  beneath  him  lay  unrolled, 
A  tangled  murk  of  rock  and  awful  shade, 
Most  like  an  inlet  thrusting  gloomy  reefs 
Up  from  the  sunken  vale, — his  world  that  was, 
And  through  its  stony  heart  the  black  gash  drawn. 
So  far  his  feet  had  pierced  into  the  night, 
Such  labors  done  had  stamped  out  all  return, 
Such  grim  despair  had  cut  him  from  his  kind; 
And  in  the  narrow  onward  what  should  lie 
More  than  the  bare  couch  of  a  lonely  grave, 
Where  never  one  of  men  should  find  the  place? 
Then  leaped  the  arrow  in  the  open  wound: 
"  Go,  if  thou  wilt,  O  following  with  the  stars 
That  rose  with  thy  creation — unbeloved, 
Inglorious,  though  love  and  fame  without 
None  finds  the  wholesome  uses  of  his  life; 
He  who  forsaketh  all,  him  all  forsake — 
And  this  thou  feelest;  now  go  mix  with  those 
Who  in  the  creature  the  Creator  slight — 


34  THE   ROAMER 

So  in  themselves  abject  is  God  disprized!  " 
And  silence  fell — far  off  the  dark  voice  ceased. 
Then  desperately  he  rose, — "  Something  remains; 
There  is  a  failure  worse  than  all  defeat — 
Not  to  attempt;  yet  there  endureth  strength 
To  fail  with, — so  to  mix  with  those  bright  names, 
My  lovers  lost  who  beckoned  me  afar, 
Dust   with    their   dust   commingled,    soul   with 

soul!  " 

So  sad  a  courage  seldom  wins  its  way; 
And  ever  as  he  went  his  thoughts  moved  back, 
And  knowledge,  gathered  in  the  wasted  years, 
Poured  its  dark  flood  upon  his  flagging  mind, — 
Of  heartlessness  fixed  at  the  core  of  things; 
Of  one  blind  Will  that  is  the  Universe, 
Illusion  made  in  man's  intelligence, 
Pain  in  his  heart,  and  life  its  striving  woe ; 
Of  instinct  never  swerving  from  the  line; 
Reason,  the  instrument  of  all  mistake, 
And  appetite,  the  passion  multiform; 
And  from  these  two,  that  couple  in  each  deed, 
The  birth  is  pain,  and  still  increase  of  pain, 
Though  oft  in  joy  disguised,  but  quickly  found. 
O,  only  he  of  men  is  fortunate, 
Who  on  the  seas  of  slumber  dreamless  lies, 
Thrice  happy  if  he  drift  unwakeful  on, 


THE   ROAMER  35 

Nor  ever  into  any  harbor  come! 
Shimmers  the  Sphere  within  the  mind  alone, 
Hung  on  the  breathing  poles  of  thy  dense  life 
Only  revolves, — thyself,  thou  art  the  Lie! 
Then  live  no  more,  but  with  the  bullet  league, 
Thrust  with  the  dagger,  bruise  the  herb  of  death — 
And  perish;  instant,  at  the  very  stroke, 
The  sparkle  of  the  globe  like  dew  exhales, 
And  vanishes;  as,  when  the  sun  goes  down, 
Night  in  the  twilight  clouds  the  purple  deep, 
Ungirds  the  robing  flame,  and  heaven  is  dark! 
More  sad,  more  deep,  with  darker  currents 

flowed 

His  moods  in  bitter  channels;  doctrines  old 
As  is  the  heart,  with  ancient  sorrow  hoar, — 
Of  guilt  once  acted  no  remorse  annuls, 
No  penance  stays  its  injury  to  men, 
And  no  forgiveness  cleanses  from  the  soul; 
Incorporate  with  the  world  it  works  till  doom; 
Still  memory  points  and  names  the  brutal  stroke, 
Or  self-inflicted,  or  another's  wound; 
And  closer  shuts  the  strong-knit  frame  of  things — 
The  clearest  vision  so  with  error  blurred, 
The  strongest  will  so  palsied  with  defect, 
That  evil  still  must  come,  and  woe  to  him 
By  whom  it  cometh,  those  on  whom  it  falls! 


36  THE   ROAMER 

O  prison  of  souls  lost,  abandoned,  dead, 
Time  cannot  crumble!  and  the  captives  there 
Lay  the  base  courses,  and  themselves  immure. 
Deep  sink  thy  founding  piers ;  thy  mighty  girth 
Doth  man  encompass;  thou  shalt  reach  to  heaven! 
Life  after  life,  race  after  dying  race, 
Mine  thy  dark  quarry,  hew  the  living  block, 
Lift  the  long  work,  a  generation's  toil — 
Strong  art  thou  built,  O  thou  Eternal  Stone! 

As  one  who  lies  submerged  in  shallow  sleep, 
Whose  thoughts  interminably  stream  along, 
No  choice,  no  purpose,  no  volition  his, 
He  drifted  masterless,  no  respite  given, 
No  lovely  thing  to  steal  him  from  himself; 
And   round   his   heart   while   weaker   grew   his 

strength, 
Some   strangling   evil   clutched,   and   seemed   to 

rise, 

A  shuddering  coil,  and  breathed  upon  his  brain. 
So  like  a  man  who  sees  not,  on  he  went, 
Stumbling  to  death;  and  low  he  heard  him  sing 
Who  of  the  heart's  voice  makes  his  falsest  lie: 

"  Of  all  the  Immortals  kind  was  only  He 
Who  on  the  fringes  of  the  eye  hung  sleep, 
And  with  death's  stolen  dew  made  sweet  the  lips ! 


THE   ROAMER  37 

0  thou  who  darest  to  tread  the  Eternal  Wild, 
On  heavenly  pity  leaning,  hurt  to  death, 
See,  every  herb  and  flower  of  ruth  is  here. 

Or  wilt  thou  suffer  long,  and  bleed  away? 
Strict  is  the  recompense — one  lonely  grave, 
Spread  on  the  rock  or  flower-strewn  in  the  vale. 

Or  dost  thou  think,  on  that  dim  verge  arrived 
Where  sits  the  Eternal  Hunger,  thou  wilt  glut 
With  thy  poor  morsel  life  the  famined  void? 

Aha!  the  breasts  of  life  are  sweet  to  suck 
When  to  the  innocent  mouth  they  give  the  milk; 
But  thou — thy  innocency  is  forgot! 

1  am  the  way  unto  the  place  of  loss; 
The  Death  indeed  I  am;  and  mine  the  art, 
Mine,  only  mine,  to  still  the  Serpent's  fangs." 

Bitter,  and  hoarse  and  short  with  struggling 

will, 

The  cry  broke  from  him  in  his  misery: 
"  Sleeps  then — man  am  I — sleeps  because  I  die, 
Sleeps  in  man's  heart  the  writhing  worm  of  hell? 
Had  I  sought  peace,  peace  long  ago  were  found. 
O  cruel  guile!  O  pitiless!  to  make 
The  sorrow  of  the  soul  thy  instrument, 


38  THE   ROAMER 

And  ruin  with  what  saves,  if  aught!  "    He  turned 
Into  the  dark  beneath  the  great  stone  brows ; 
"  O  fertile  Falsehood!  fool,  to  think  him  known 
Who  draws  his  cordon  round  the  mount  of  time 
And  singly  doth  beleaguer  the  whole  world 
That  there  sits  perched!  races  and  states  opposed, 
And  God's  alliance!  yet  each  poor  soul  doth  press 
As  it  were  all  his  war!  drop  not  thy  fence, 
Nor  think  thyself  secure  though  angels  guard; 
Keep  watch  with  all  thy  gates;  within  be  stern!  " 

Once  more  he  taught  his  spirit  to  endure 
The  rugged  track;  o'er  crevice  and  high  ravine 
Great  huddled  peaks  and  ridges  bulked  in  air, — 
Rivers  of  ice,  vast  copes  of  ageless  frost, 
With  glittering  bergs  and  thin  crevasses  hoar, 
The  waste  eternal  winter;  loft  on  loft, 
The  rolling  snow-field  whitened  the  great  skies; 
Now  nigh  to  heaven  he  rose  and  prospects  broad, 
Out  of  the  silent  valleys  drifting  death, 
On   great   plateaus   that   should   command   the 

world ; 

And  ever  where  the  far  horizons  flung 
Round  him  with  mightier  folds  the  starry  robe, 
He  read  the  man-myth  on  the  shining  hem, — 
Iran,  Chaldsea,  Egypt, — and  more  late, 
Divinely  springing  from  the  Olympian  mount, 


THE   ROAMER  39 

The  torch-race  of  the  ever-dying  gods, 

Orb  after  orb  of  throneless  deity; 

And  spectral  o'er  him  broke  in  that  frore  air 

The  burnt-out  hopes,  and  ghosts  of  prophecy, 

That  once  from  holy  hearts  rose  charioted, 

And  in  the  zenith  hung  their  mighty  faiths, — 

Visions  of  old,  by  every  mastering  race, 

Set  in  the  blazing  zodiac  of  time; 

The  fiery  pillar  that  brought  Israel  forth 

Rose  like  an  exhalation ;  flaming  stood 

The  Cross  that  went  before  imperial  Rome; 

Pale  swam  the  moon  of  Islam  dropping  blood ; 

And  out  they  flickered,  brief  as  shooting  stars; 

Then  dark  the  slow  recovery  of  his  sight, 

Weary  of  all  that  never  ceasing  death, 

Saw  Lethe  roll  against  a  purple  dawn, 

Weird  as  by  breadths  of  watery  gloom  far  North 

The  sun  at  midnight  sheds  unearthly  morn; 

Saw  still  Avilion  on  the  unoared  lake, 

Dim,  dusky,  fragile,  like  a  flower  of  night 

Half-open  to  the  white  and  slumbrous  moon; — 

"  Peace,  if  not  hope;  death,  if  not  life;  calm  death 

That  of  the  grave  keeps  but  tranquillity," 

He  murmured — snatches  of  remembered  prayer; 

"  Not  mine,  no  longer  mine,  no  more,"  he  mused; 

"  O,  for  Thy  service  build  Thy  Strength  in  me 


40  THE   ROAMER 

To  do  Thy  will  unknown!  "  he  pressed  his  heart, 
And,  patient,  climbed  against  the  barren  skies, 
And,  fain  to  see,  saw  not;  "  nay,  not  the  sight," 
He  sighed,  "  the  very  truth,  man's  miracle, — 
Not  in  the  heaven  of  heavens,  eternal  built, 
The  city  shining  down  the  fadeless  stars, 
Where  no  night  is,  nor  ever  falls  a  tear, 
Hope  cannot  die,  and  memory  is  not  pain, 
And  there  no  partings  are,  but  love  is  all." 
The  summit  of  the  pass  could  not  be  far. 
With    bold,    strong    curves    the    ice-ribbed    floor 

pierced  on; 

Loud  fell  his  footstep;  sudden  opposite 
The  mountain  broke,  one  headlong  precipice, 
Upon  the  western  stars;  and,  crest  on  crest, 
The  pale  ledge,  like  a  billow  of  the  night 
On  shores  unknown,  bore  him  upon  his  fate; 
Almost  he  hoped — was  there  indeed  an  end? 
Low  in  the  sunken  West  the  red  moon  flared; 
A  savage  land  rolled  on  the  vacant  air; 
The  sloping,  vast,  dead  wilderness — 'twas  all. 
There  ran  the  swift  descent  straight  to  the 

waste. 

O,  evil  was  his  case!  down,  down  he  went; 
Little  he  thought  save  that  his  grave  lay  there. 
Now  had  he  borne  his  body  to  the  death — 


THE   ROAMER  41 

The  passion  spent,  the  corpse  at  last  would  fall. 

And  many  a  sign  came  whispering  of  the  end; 

All  helplessly  he  felt  the  loosening  life 

Waver  from  sense  and  flutter  from  his  will; 

And,  as  o'er  dying  men  comes  fantasy 

Of  their  own  selves  beside  them  waiting  lone, 

A  phantom  seemed  to  reach,  with  motions  dark, 

For  pity  and  comfort  in  its  solitude; 

But  he  neglectful  walked,  remembering  all 

The  passion  and  the  loyalty  of  years. 

The  peaks   sprang   up   behind;    woods   arched 

him  in, 

Unmindful,  and  on  swards  of  grass,  he  came, 
Nor  knew  he  moved,  and  death  was  in  his  limbs. 
Ah,  yet  once  more,  out  of  the  dark  obscure 
Earth's  wheel  of  torture  heaved  his  soul  aloft, 
And  Nature  rallied  for  her  last  farewell. 
Then  was  he  'ware  of  strange  lights  in  the  North — 
Pale  silver  gleams  on  banks  of  emerald  shone 
Changeful,  and  now  a  drifting  rose,  and  now 
A  thousand  shadowy  rainbows  wavering; 
And  lone  thereunder,  laid  by  pine  trees  hoar, 
He  saw  a  youth,  and  broken  in  his  hand 
A  reed  of  nature  set  with  golden  stops. 
He  drew  more  near  where  on  the  brown  he  lay, 
And  knelt,  and  took  his  head  between  his  hands, 


42  THE   ROAMER 

And  parted  the  fair  hair  from  off  his  brows. 

Upon  his  own  dead  face  he  seemed  to  look. 

He  could  no  more.    He  sank  to  earth.    "  Would  God 

Might  press  the  sponge  of  death  upon  my  lips," 

He  murmured;  and  again  by  that  far  sea 

He  seemed  to  sit,  again  he  died  to  light, 

And  on  the  burning  darkness  came  the  gloom, 

Terrifically  near,  his  soul's  eclipse, 

And  in  his  ears  faint  rang  the  dying  blast 

Of  Roland  dead  with  all  his  chivalry; 

Then  Roland's  dark  breath  seemed  with  his  to 

mix, 

Head  laid  to  head,  the  heroic  kiss  of  death; 
"  Non  sono  traditore"  low  he  sighed ; 
And  ere  night  sucked  him  downward,  in  that 

dusk, 

Even  as  the  flown  soul  to  the  body  seems, 
Borne  on  the  drifting  dark  the  past  went  by 
Crying,  and  on  its  forehead  was  a  star. 


THE    ROAMER 
BOOK  II 

"Is  the  earth  heavier  for  the  corpse  that  lies, 
Or  lighter  for  the  spirit  flown  away, 
That  she  has  fixed  so  deep  the  lust  of  life?  " 
The  Roamer  heard;  and  as  from  tides  of  night 
Earth  seemed  emerging  round  him;    the  white 

moon 

Lifted  the  low  hills  from  the  raven  shade; 
And  like  the  eternal  deluge  petrified 
In  heaven-shouldering  billows,  the  black  Range 
Bore  up  the  snowy  threshold  of  the  stars; 
His  soul  yet  felt  its  dread,  his  heart  its  chill. 
That    one    who    had    renewed    his    pain    stood 

nigh 

In  the  bright  glitter  of  the  mountain  moon, 
A  youth  thought- worn ;  the  color  of  his  face 
Hovered  between  the  bloom  and  bronze,  nor  yet 
Had  time  renewed  in  him  his  twentieth  May; 
Upon  his  full  brow  moulded  tenderly 
The  morning  sorrow  of  our  life  sat  throned; 
In  meditation  lost  he  muttered  on: 
43 


44  THE   ROAMER 

"  To  live — what  is  it?  save  with  savage  use 
To  slay  the  beast,  and  drink  the  battle-rage? 
To  strike  with  Nature  compact  the  most  foul, 
And  bloody  league?  or  at  the  veins  of  gold 
To  suck,  the  vampire  of  the  commonwealth, 
Deal  indirectly,  safer  than  sword-play, 
Do  murder  in  a  mask?  and  wherefore,  wherefore? 
To  see  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars  go  round? 
Nay,  lust,  ambition,  avarice  set  aside, 
The  world  put  underfoot,  what  hope  remains 
To  graft  on  Nature  true  nobility? 
Nature  refining  still  destroys  herself; 
Briefer  the  date,  more  frail  the  tenure  is, 
In  that  same  measure  as  the  soul  ascends ; 
And  death  and  madness  crown  the  climax  up; 
But  the  coarse  multitude  she  floods  with  power 
To  break  the  wise,  to  crucify  the  good, 
And  to  the  block  bring  true  nobility; 
And  souls  that  will  not  commerce  with  her  force 
Are  from  the  juices  of  our  life  cut  off; 
Cut  at  the  root  is  true  nobility; 
Or  if,  though  rare,  it  puts  forth  its  green  shoot 
And  glorifies  the  soul  in  which  it  grows, 
And  opes   love's  passion,   deepening   bloom  in 

bloom, — 
Divine  desires  innumerably  born, 


THE  ROAMEU  45 

Insatiate,  incessant,  mystical, 

From  uncreated  beauty  procreant, 

As  in  the  inexhaustible  far  East 

The  eternal  Daybreak  from  her  rosy  orb 

Millions  of  mornings  casts — O  Ecstasy, 

Lead  me  no  more  that  way  where  reason  faints, 

Forever  lost  in  visionary  things!  " 

The  white  melodic  motions  of  his  throat 
With  rounding  throbs  of  pain  convulsing  shook, 
And  down  the  dark  head  dropped  with  sighings 

low; 

Then  such  a  look  he  flung  upon  high  heaven 
As  seemed  to  pluck  his  soul  forth  at  his  eyes; 
And   the  heart  heard  him  ere  his   quick  lips 

moved: 

"  O  Love  divine,  thou  art  our  misery! 
Our  mortal  make  bears  not  the  joy  supreme 
Save  for  an  instant.    Go,  poor  lonely  fool, 
Thy  taste  of  heaven  hath  made  a  famine  here 
No  sun  of  earth  shall  e'er  replenish  more! 
Go,  house  henceforth  with  his  less  happy  lot, 
Not  rare,  whose  true  nobility  was  made 
The  snare  to  trap  him ;  now  strike  hands  with  him 
Whose  high-wrought  passion  met  the  unguided 

blow 
Of  fatal  circumstance,  and  warped  aside 


46  THE   ROAMER 

To  make  love  do  the  bitter  work  of  hate! 
And  shall  we  for  the  chance  of  temporal  bliss, 
The  one  in  thousands,  for  some  trivial  thing, 
Submit  the  conscious  spirit  to  the  shame, 
Or  cheat  life's  blossom  of  its  bitter  fruit, 
And  dying  find  the  near  way  to  the  grave? 
Eternal  Vengeance!     Who  that  hath  a  soul, 
The  match  of  knowledge,  would  not  break  the 

bond, 
The  base,  base  thraldom?  who  would  tame  his 

will, 

That  from  heaven's  justice  takes  its  liberty, 
To  do  the  lecherous  and  bloody  act 
Of  natural  being?  who  would  game  and  lie, 
And  shrink  into  a  cruel  selfish  heart, 
To  lord  it  o'er  this  serf-society? 
Great  souls  might  conquer  pain;  loss  nor  mis 
chance 

Can  touch  their  essence ;  but  't  is  evil  fixed 
In  the  creative  root  and  lift  of  all 
The  massive  constitution  of  the  world 
That  bankrupts  hope;  and  who  that  lives  escapes? 
God's  pity!  when  obedience  makes  us  slaves, 
Rebellion  is  the  badge  of  loyalty! 
To  keep  free  souls  is  true  nobility. 
Unburden,  breath,  and  thou,  fine  frame,  unlock!  " 


THE   ROAMER  47 

He  struck  his  breast,  and  woke  amazed,  and 

looked 

On  the  lone  Roamer  and  the  quiet  stars. 
But,  soon  recovered,  wondering  he  spoke, 
And  gentle  was  his  mien  though  hard  his  speech, 
And  eased  with  pity  fell  the  words,  half  scorn: 

"  Deignest  thou  yet  to  wear  the  bloody  doom, 
That  manacled  in  flesh  thou  comest  here? 
Strip  off,  strip  off,  and  let  the  soul  go  free!  " 

The  rich  tones,  haunted  with  unmating  love, 
Ceased;  nearer  now,  o'er-bent,  the  fair  young  face, 
As  in  clairvoyant  Aprils  of  the  boy, 
With  sudden  wistful  changes  softening, 
Sweetened  with  such  a  look  as  lights  all  years, 
When  soul  on  soul  pours  intimate  its  might, 
And  well  the  Roamer  knew  that  great  appeal. 
O  love-starved  heart,  how  gnawed  thy  hunger 

then! 

Fain  was  he  to  embrace  him,  found  at  last; 
He  would  have  sprung,  and  fallen  upon  his  youth, 
Breast  upon  breast,  and  head  to  head  laid  close, 
So  was  he  inly  moved  with  sudden  trust; 
But  in  his  soul  he  stayed,  nor  tore  life's  veil 
Between  them,  answering,  "  Nature's  mould  I 

wear, 
Nor  yet  of  her  dear  motherhood  bereft." 


48  THE   ROAMER 

That  other's  eyes  filled  their  blue  deeps  with  fire, 

And  fair  the  spirit  floated  in  his  face 

Brightly  upraised;  there  life's  mysterious  throe 

On  every  feature  set  its  delicate  seal. 

"Her  child!  "  with  echoing  lips,  he  seemed  to  say; 

"Dear  motherhood!  "  he  sighed,  half-heard;   and, 

rapt, 
Thought  gathered  in  him  from  the  speechless 

deeps ; 

Then  broke  the  sounding  wave:     "  O  mother- 
might! 

O  passion  of  the  child-heart  streaming  back 
Upon  the  breasts  of  being!     O  first  sweet  throb, 
When  from  the  ocean-filling  horn  of  morn, 
And  from  the  porphyry-clouded  font  of  eve, 
God  poured  on  me  the  rose  and  amber  light 
Baptismal,  and  my  soul's  awakening  was, 
And  all  my  boyhood  was  one  altar-watch! 
And  when  beneath  the  starry  roof  of  years 
My  soul  caught  glimpses  of  this  glowing  frame, 
This  rock-ribbed  base  of  earth,  this  broad-flung 

sky, 

This  seamless  air,  the  realm  and  throne  of  light, 
This  blossoming  pave  inlaid  with  azure  seas, 
This  carve  of  riven-cloven  continents, 
This  fret  of  rainbows  and  the  winged  winds, 


THE  ROAMER  49 

This  blaze  of  stars,  this  infinite  fair  world, 
The  express  will  of  God,  the  mould  of  law, 
Passion  welled  in  me,  and  hope  wonderful 
As  heaven's  leading  to  its  own  elect, 
To  know,  to  know,  to  know,  only  to  know! 
And  knowledge  came  to  me  that  comes  to  all 
Ere  manly  years."    Again  he  found  the  world, 
And  seemed  as  one  who  masters  in  himself 
Pity  for  others  and  his  own  despair. 
Then  by  that  sudden  sympathy  compelled, 
They  drew,  together,  o'er  the  softened  pine: 

"Yes,  knowledge  comes;  and  joy  it  is  at  first 
To  be  the  confidant  of  Nature's  heart, 
To  steal  her  memory,  live  her  ages  o'er; 
Nor  less  than  god-like  shall  he  seem  whose  eye 
Through    Time's    dark    telescope    doth    stand    at 

gaze 

With  light's  first  motions  in  the  silenced  prime; 
He  ranges  the  abyss,  and  home  returns, 
Nor  from  his  instant  moves, — without  amaze, 
Eternity  shrunk  to  an  hour  of  thought. 
Hast  thou  not  seen  it,  as  't  were  yester  morn 
And  o'er  thy  father's  fields  that  light  went  forth? 
The  kindle  of  the  unforeseeing  deep, 
The  sparkle  of  the  multitudinous  fire, 
The  glow  and  gather  of  the  isles  of  flame, 


50  THE   ROAMER 

Clusters  along  the  measureless  dim  stream, 

Star-budding  power,  whose  infinite  of  light 

Shall  break  and  burst,  snowing  the  million  spheres, 

White  galaxies  and  rosy-girdled  globes, 

Firm-coursing  lights  and  tresses  comet-shook, 

And  planetary  orbs  whose  sheathed  fires 

The  rock  encrusts — the  early  firmament, 

Sun,  moon  and  stars;  and  now  red  morning  shouts 

Ethereal  welcome  to  the  sea  and  land, 

The  green  and  azure  continents  of  light, 

Built  for  the  haunt  of  finer  mystery. 

Long  was  the  labor,  and  sweet  life  has  come; 

Housed  in  the  shell,  scarfed  with  the  serpent's  skin, 

It  drifts  upon  the  sea,  it  crawls  the  ooze; 

It  casts  its  films  on  slime  and  shale  and  sand ; 

It  rises  up — O  miracle  of  change! 

He  comes,  he  comes,  the  spirit-visioned  One, 

The  child  of  promise,  earth's  dear  heavenly  charge, 

The  heir  of  all  that  was,  the  prophecy 

Of  all  that  shall  be,  man,  the  crown  of  things. 

Take  him,  O  Nature,  flower  and  seed  divine! 

With  fragrant  seasons  harbor  him,  O  Earth! 

Bright  heaven,  with  lucid  balms  his  eyelids  bathe! 

Thou  vital  air,  sustain  him!  our  rich  hope, 

Our  bliss  on  earth,  our  immortality 

In  heaven! — Mockery!  mockery!  look  you  there! — 


THE   ROAMER  51 

0  what  a  sight  to  blast  an  angel's  eyes 
It  was!  the  den  and  lair  of  the  red  strife, 
The  slaughter  gaping  from  ten  thousand  wounds, 
While  like  a  monster  on  the  gory  floor 

Life  sits  and  gorges,  half-alive,  half-dead, 

On  its  own  entrails  slaking  its  fierce  lust! 

There  is  his  hostelry  and  mortal  lodge; 

There  must  he  sleep,  and  there  must  dream  and 

wake, 

And  knead  his  being  of  the  crimson  spume. 
Cursed  he  was  before  he  saw  the  sun. 
'  Thy  life  is  murder,'  Nature  shrieks  to  him; 

1  O  born  of  carnage  and  to  havoc  doomed, 
My  child  thou  art/  she  cries,  '  my  prey  to  be; 
Thy  blood  pollution  is,  thy  breath  decay; 
Thee,  too,  my  brute  necessity  compels; 
Harken  my  wisdom,  o'er  all  time  that  was, 
As  on  the  gates  of  life,  my  legend  graved, 
Thy  body  its  incarnate  victory: 

Red  is  the  eagle's  claw,  the  lion's  fang; 
Red  is  thy  father's  sword,  thy  foeman's  spear; 
Kill,  eat  and  die,  for  this  my  empire  is.' 
He  heard;  and  sorrow  with  immortal  birth, 
First  sorrow,  cleft  his  brain;  within  him  seethed 
The  working  of  old  time  and  heavy  fate, 
Growing  imbruted  to  the  thing  he  is; 


52  THE   ROAMER 

And  evil  filled  him,  and  his  heart  was  stone. 

His  generations  lust  and  avarice  were, 

Since  first  the  barbarous  hordes  from  cave  and  fen 

Issued  with  slanting  foreheads,  hanging  lips, 

Chippers  of  flint;  new-weaponing  their  hate 

With  bronze  and  iron;  clan  and  tribe  and  race 

Hostile;  and  yoked  beneath  the  deadliest  arm 

Conglomerate  the  Asian  state  rose  up, 

An  army  and  a  priesthood  and  a  king. 

Lie  deep,  white  Death,  on  that  hoar  infamy! 

Time  turns  his  glass;  far  shines  the  Attic  hill, 

And  sevenfold  Rome  o'er  her  dead  marshes  frowns, 

And  Carthage  from  her  markets  looks  across! 

Alas,  the  darling  city  barbarized; 

Alas,  the  proud  dominion's  buried  wrack; 

Alas,  the  sand-blown  desert  tenantless! 

Temples  and  palaces  and  war-girt  forts, 

Letters  and  arms  and  jewelled  hoards  of  trade, 

Far  continents  and  undiscovered  isles, 

A  hundred  empires  fall!  nor  deem  thyself, 

Proud  age,  excepted;  still  the  reek  of  death 

Breathes  in  thy  nostrils;  the  black  march  begins 

Wherewith  the  jealous  nations  sow  revenge; 

And  peace  in  all  thy  borders  whets  a  war 

More  fell,  the  mighty  grapple  joined  world-wide, 

The  commonwealth  a  meaner  mask  of  war, 


THE   ROAMER  53 

This  side  for  gold  and  lands,  on  that  for  bread; 

The  brawl  is  made  a  people's  massacre. 

For  subtler  arms  they  leave  the  spear  and  shield, 

To  overcome  with  fraud  the  slower  mind, 

With  cunning  to  beguile  the  freer  heart, 

Purloining  this  man's  substance,  that  one's  hopes ; 

The  myriads  fall,  the  few  rise  eminent, 

And  death  delaying  limps  as  slavery, 

One  name  of  many  shapes,  or  bond  or  free. 

Children  must  eat,  and  women's  tears  be  dried: 

Toil  on,  O  Worker,  these  are  chains  indeed, 

And  well  the  masters  know  to  make  them  bite. 

The  curse  be  on  them!  men  of  barren  greed, 

Who  in  the  sweet  necessities  of  life 

Forge  the  sharp  axes  of  their  fierce  misrule; 

Who  loose  the  whips  of  hunger  o'er  the  poor, 

Themselves  in  plenty,  fenced  in  sabred  law, 

Voracious  mouths,  and  unrelaxing  hands; 

True  slavers  they,  and  traffic  in  their  kind; 

The  plough,  the  loom,  the  engine, — that's  the  man, 

And  they  the  owners!     O  the  ignominy! 

'  When?  when?  '  the  people  cry,  and  troop  to  death. 

The  viperous  knot,  how  hard  they  reach  and  strain! 

O  well  may  Nature  trample  on  the  brood, 

And  rot,  a  famine,  where  he  sows  the  seed, 

And  pour,  an  inundation,  o'er  his  fields, 


54  THE   ROAMER 

And  shake,  an  earthquake,  underneath  his  towers, 
And  belch  on  city  and  plain  volcanic  fire, 
Stoop  in  fierce  lightnings,  swarm  in  pestilence! 
And  he  whose  coming  was  the  dawn  divine, 
The  child  in  whom  the  morning  cannot  die, 
Where  shall  he  turn?  what  harbor,  what  escape? 
O'erwhelmed  within  by  fate  he  never  forged, 
The  victim  of  primeval  woe  and  wrong, 
The  sinful  burden  of  all  time  his  load, 
'  No  child  of  hope  thou  art,'  from  all  things  here 
Loud  Nature  thunders;  c  the  Destroyer  thou, 
The  last  and  mightiest  wielder  of  the  curse, 
Whose  dark  assault,  disdaining  mortal  wreck, 
On  the  eternal  soul  now  plants  the  wound/  " 
Then  spoke  the  Roamer,  lifting  equal  eyes, 
Who  could  not  stem  that  breathless  eloquence: 
"  Deep  is  the  mystery  of  our  birth  divine, 
The  fire  from  heaven  that  seizes  on  this  clay 
And  moulds  it  to  the  spirit  of  a  man; 
Deeper  the  earth-taint  and  its  mystery, 
From  what  dark  root  its  strong  corruption  grows 
To  eat  into  the  soul's  fine  element. 
Justice  nor  mercy  never  Nature  knew; 
Yet  man  she  bore;  and,  howsoe'er  he  sin, 
Justice  and  mercy  to  his  heart  are  known; 
And  some,  whose  names  are  my  idolatry, 


THE   ROAMER  55 

Have  risen;  the  words  they  spake  can  never  die: 
They  outlive  empire;  they  are  made  the  seed 
Of  resurrection;  heaven  shall  harvest  them." 

Almost  that  other  believed  what  most  he  would. 
Swift  lights  of  love  went  o'er  his  stormy  eyes, 
And  far  within  their  fountains  shone  the  soul, 
Like  some  great  spirit  struggling  to  be  born: 

"  And  art  thou  of  the  bright  world-savers?  they 
Who  in  the  beauty  of  the  Christ-flame  die, 
The  last  earth-fire  ascending  the  lone  skies, 
In  man's  great  God-dream  risen  wonderful, 
The  Star  of  noble  nations  " — his  straight  gaze 
Swam  warm  and  tender,  piercingly  he  looked 
Upon  the  Roamer's  eyes,  searching  far  in, 
As  if  those  orbs  pale  revelation  held, 
And  he  unconscious  told  what  there  he  saw: 

"  Far  on  the  track  of  time  I  see  arisen 
Ten  thousand  altars  stained  with  innocence, 
Nor  herds  and  flocks  and  captives  in  their  chains, 
Nor  men  and  women  in  their  frenzied  woe, 
The  common  victims  only;  hither  bring, 
O  Race  of  men,  thy  choicest ;  heaven  cries  c  Kill ' ; 
Shut,  shut  thy  ears  lest  thou  perchance  should  hear, 
Above  the  dying  sounds  of  time  far-borne, 
The  awful  accents  roam  the  unbordered  deep, 
'  My  Father,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me!  * 


56  THE   ROAMER 

Crack  in  thy  sphere,  O  Earth,  and  melt  in  flame! 
1  Heirs  of  the  Christ,  the  lineage  of  heaven, 
Whereto  creation  works,'  great  Nature  laughs, 
'  Come,  heap  the  altar  of  the  sacrifice! 
Would  ye  reverse  my  laws?  then  taste  the  doom!  '  " 

"  O  spirit  unfortunate,"  another  spoke, 
"  Look  for  no  welcome  here  save  to  despair; 
I  hope  not,  but  I  yet  remember  hope, 
And  do  thy  faith  this  reverence";  his  voice, 
Ceased,  but  its  music  lingered  in  his  smile. 

"  A  lover's  pains  is  all  I  know  of  hope," 
The  Roamer  answered;  "  faithful  be  we  found 
Though  lost;  wherefore,  if  ever  ye  held  dear 
The  virtue  that,  though  starved  in  your  lives, 
May  yet  on  memory's  eternal  branch 
Put  forth  the  green  and  living  leaf,  O  speak! 
So  on  your  graves  may  my  sad  laurel  lie." 

"  Italian  by  thy  face,"  that  other  said, 
"  In  whose  dark  eyes  relics  of  hope  abide, 
Fair  must  thy  story  be;  let  this  old  wood, 
That  nightly  sighs  with  sad  and  wandering  tales. 
Harbor  our  sorrows  for  one  cherished  hour, 
And  thou  shalt  tell  us  of  thy  history 
And  make  in  turn  acquaintance  with  our  woe; 
So  memory  shall  endear  companionship; 
To  share  another's  grief  oft  heals  our  own. 


THE   ROAMER  57 

Reginald  was  I, — to  what  end  thou  seest. 

I  strove  to  solve  the  mighty  world  in  thought." 

"  Victor  I  am,"  the  Italian  straight  began, 
"  And  with  the  world  tyrannic  strove  in  song, 
A  voice  among  the  spearmen,  angel-clear, 
Till  the  king's  rifles  rang  against  my  throat 
After  the  failure,  if  that  failure  was 
Which  to  remember  in  the  grave  were  heaven 
And  to  relate  even  in  this  gloom  is  joy." 
So  sate  they  down,  and  Victor  told  his  tale. 

"  Siena — still  she  sits  upon  her  crags, 
And  on  the  slope  the  dark-stemmed  Mangia  springs, 
And  o'er  the  crest  the  Campanile  towers; 
My  mother,  and  the  mother  of  my  soul! 
For  from  her  face  I  did  not  need  to  roam 
To  find  my  heaven;  there  every  rock  aspires. 
There  once  I  slept,  and  woke  beneath  the  stars, 
And  found  within  my  bosom  a  snow-white  bird, 
A  waif  unknown,  and  stroked  and  loved  its  plumes; 
And  ever  after  was  I  lightly  named 
The  boy  who  bore  the  bird  within  his  breast. 
Blind  eyes  that  babbled  of  the  things  of  sense, 
Of  boy  and  bird,  and  missed  the  rhyme  of  life, 
The  voice  of  promise,  echo  of  desire! 
For  heavenly  grace  that  hath  made  all  things  twain, 
Doth  but  divide  them  as  the  hand  and  lyre 


58  THE    ROAMER 

To  free  the  music  of  their  harmony. 
There's  nought  so  lonely  in  the  world  of  change 
But  't  is  the  prison  of  these  concords  sweet 
When  hearts  shall  find  them;  therefore  to  the  boy 
Trifles  are  often  rich  in  miracle; 
Doubt  not  his  treasure;  rather  doubt  thy  own. 
The  finding  of  the  bird  was  more  to  me 
Than  the  rich  coffer  of  the  earth  all  gems, 
Than  Rome's  tiara  to  the  shaking  brow, 
Than  continents  of  gold  to  voyaging  kings; 
My  whisper  of  the  yonder  world,  my  thought 
Of  the  far  country  and  the  over-seas — 
'  O  whence?  O  whence?  '  I  asked,  and  beautiful 
It  cleft  the  frowning  walls,  and  entered  light, 
And  came  again,  the  warm  sun  on  its  wings, 
And  clasped  with  rosy  feet  my  tender  hands, 
And  shared  my  poverty  and  brought  its  heaven. 
The  months  rolled  on  and  swelled  the  young  tree's 

girth; 

The  autumn  blew  and  stripped  the  last  year's  vines; 
The  stars  of  winter  dropped  their  shining  strength; 
The  wild  spring  came;  and  as  the  mists  of  morn 
Upon  the  azure  marches  far  away 
Build  towers  of  vantage  over  distant  lands, 
So  by  the  spirit's  breath  my  thoughts  were  driven, 
And  on  the  soul's  horizons,  round  and  round, 


THE    ROAMER  59 

Won  on  the  shining  borders  of  the  world 

Regions  of  vision;  evermore  the  bird 

Hung  in  the  morning  sky  above  my  heart, 

As  if  I  too  should  follow  and  fly  with  it 

To  morrows  without  end;  the  still  noon  dreamt 

And  unseen  armor  on  the  ether  clanged 

Virgilian  music;  and  the  paths  of  sleep 

Shone  with  white  garments,  gleamed  with  myrtle 

crowns 

Of  youth  in  triumph  bearing  boughs  of  spring; 
Then  darkened  was  the  hollow  cloud  of  dream, 
And,  angel-watched,  a  glory-lighted  face 
Shining  on  heaven  through  flowers  of  martyrdom 
Filled  my  faint  eyes  with  peace  more  sweet  than  joy ; 
And  still  the  bird  in  every  vision  flew 
As  he  would  woo  me  to  some  world  removed, 
Forever  breaking,  lingering,  biding  nigh, 
Till  came  the  Word.    'T  was  by  the  marble  brook 
That  jets  neglected  in  the  gray-walled  cirque 
Where  slept  the  Wolf  in  stone  and  slept  the  law; 
Silent,  I  gazed  upon  the  mightier  age 
Tombed  in  those  walls  austere;  the  bird  in  air 
Shadowed  the  fountain,  and  a  monk  passed  by 
Dark  by  those  snowy  wings ;  and  all  at  once 
The  poppy-branch  struck  on  my  dream-drenched 

eyes, 


60  THE   ROAMER 

And  blackness  rolled  upon  the  solid  world, 
And  drowned  it;  and  there  broke  a  yellow  shaft 
Like  some  great  rift  of  sunset  smiting  through, 
And  on  the  mighty  beam  the  bird,  full  flight, 
Came  singing  out  of  heaven,  songless  till  then, 
A  little  cluster  of  rich-warbled  notes, 
Ever  the  same,  one  thrill,  and  o'er  and  o'er, 
That  fell  upon  my  heart  like  dropping  flames, 
So  strange,  it  seemed  I  knew  not  song  before. 

I  woke;  the  music  slept  within  my  breast — 
And  over  me  the  ancient  walls  leaned  down 
As  with  some  statue's  marble  utterance; 
'  How  fair  he  comes  who  brings  his  country  peace!  ' 
I  heard,  as  plain  as  winds  on  olive  groves. 
1  What  peace?  '  I  cried,  and  climbed  the  straitened 

ways 

To  where  upon  the  City's  sacred  brow, 
As  to  the  breath  of  the  Eternal  Morn, 
The  mystic  Rose  of  Christ  unfolds  its  leaves, 
The  bower  of  his  earthly  memory; 
And  there  I  marked  the  priests  go  ever  in, 
Like  flies  and  gnats;  and  on  me  came  the  Voice: 
1  Wouldst  thou  bring  peace?    Then  haste  thee;  now, 

even  now, 

The  eagles  of  the  Christ  fly  forth  to  war!  ' 
The  bird  was  gone — a  white  and  quivering  point. 


THE   ROAMER  6 1 

Breasting  the  blue,  far,  far  beyond  recall 

He  soared,  and  bathed  in  light  his  new-found  song. 

And  I  arose,  and  as  the  torrents  pour 

In  April,  and  the  water-courses  rush 

To  brim  the  river  that  roars  out  to  sea, 

Desire  from  all  the  spirit's  heights  leaped  down 

In  wild  tumultuous  thought  and  speed  to  find 

The  ways  of  action  and  the  throng  of  deeds ; 

And  as,  when  tempests  blow,  the  winds  will  break 

On  flood  and  forest,  and  the  gathering  blast 

Louder  and  longer  swells  one  mighty  note, 

So,  in  that  hour,  one  nature-cadenced  word 

Struck  on  my  soul,  and  smote  its  music  forth, 

Wild  as  a  poet's  in  his  stormy  youth ; 

And  with  the  night  calm  fell;  and  with  the  calm 

The  bird  came  silent  home.    For  what  was  I? 

A  youth  distrusted,  unallied,  obscure, 

In  all  things  poor  save  that  one  heavenly  gift, 

The  winged  heart  within  my  bosom  hid; 

And  must  I  loose  it  to  the  flashing  swords, 

And  rifle  the  sweet  lodging  of  my  breast, 

And  bid  the  bird  go  sing  through  Italy 

That  song  of  his?    No  other  deed  there  was, 

No  other  way  but  this  to  give  my  life! 

'  O  bella  Liberia! '  I  carolled  out; 
The  bird  took  flight,  the  thronged  street  stood  still; 


62  THE   ROAMER 

'  O  breath  that  wakes  the  hundred  lyres  of  song, 
O  trump  that  fills  the  thousand  fields  of  fame, 
O  hand  of  Hope,  O  seed  of  Memory, 
Planting  the  future  with  the  past  sublime! 
O  voice  that  doth  proclaim  the  glorious  peace, 
O  hymn  that  lifts  the  jubilee  of  slaves — 
The  birth-cry  of  the  nations,  earth's  new  name, 
The  victory's  blazon,  Christ's  eternal  rouse! 
Thy  faintest  whisper  quakes  beneath  the  throne, 
And  echoes  in  the  people's  mighty  heart, 
And  gathers  to  the  shout  that  gives  God  hail! 
O  rushing  from  the  sun-struck  mountain-tops, 
O  thunder-zoned,  thou  banisher  of  kings, 

0  sweet  thy  smile  that  brings  the  exile  home!  ' 
The  paean  swelled — '  O  bella  Liberia! ' 

1  sent  from  hill  to  hill  the  singing  word; 
I  cherished  with  my  life  the  song  I  sang; 

I  poured  it  forth,  free  as  the  patriot's  blood, 
The  all  I  was;  and,  lo,  my  chambered  soul 
Lived  in  a  thousand  nobler  lives  than  mine; 
For  he  who  standeth  in  the  whole  world's  hope 
Is  as  a  magnet;  he  shall  draw  all  hearts 
To  be  his  shield,  all  arms  to  strike  his  blow. 
So  round  my  voice  the  globe  of  battle  grew, 
The  war-clash  'gan  to  murmur,  and  my  lips 
Sang  to  the  onset,  and  death  flashing  fell. 


THE    ROAMER  63 

But  evil,  that  doth  cling  to  all  things  here, 
O'ercame  that  triumph.    Yet,  come  all  again, 
I'll  say  it  o'er;  the  dearest  word  of  men, 
The  first  to  seal  the  poet's  virgin  vow, 
The  last  to  wing  the  patriot's  breath  to  heaven, 
Is  Liberty;  it  hath  the  heart's  touch  in  it, 
The  pang  of  sacred  deaths,  the  onward  reach 
Of  old  heroic  lives;  O,  richly  charged — 
With  virtue's  spoils  and  dear-prized  honor  heaped, 
And  ventures  of  such  make  their  precious  worth 
Should  purchase  heaven,  if  any  ransom's  weight 
Levelled  the  beam  of  that  great  counterpoise 
With  even  scales  aloft ;  but  't  is  not  so. 
In  time's  dark  field  must  mortal  valor  fight 
And  with  the  viewless  future  cope  on  earth. 
Yet  the  good  cause  plants  virtue  in  the  act; 
'Tis  blessed;  and  so,  and  most  through  liberty, 
The  peopled  earth  is  made  the  place  of  souls; 
And  sooner  shall  the  little  life  of  man 
Cease  to  be  heaven's  prologue  than  his  lips 
Shall  be  untreasured  of  the  word  of  grace 
That  chased  them  half-divine.    Such  thoughts  were 

mine 

Though  captived — chained  unto  the  Roman  wall, 
Where    none    but   priests    are    free.     O,    them    I 

curse, 


64  THE   ROAMER 

From  blue-veined  Venice  to  white  Naples'  flush, 
Where'er  across  the  square  of  sun  they  creep 
Through  filth  of  beggars  to  Christ's  open  door! 
The  hearts  unransomed  by  the  love  of  man, 
The  lips  that  lie  for  power  and  pray  for  gain, 
The  practised  brains  that  plot  the  baser  age, 
Hunters  of  liberty  the  thousand  years! 
They  scourge  the  nations  with  the  holy  Cross, 
And  poison  in  the  wine  the  Sacred  Wounds, 
And  of  our  great  Redemption  bondage  forge! 
Where  lingers  vengeance?     On,  ye  sleepless  hours! 
And  Thou,  whose  long  age  over  them  yet  rolls- 
Harvest  this  curse  among  the  quiet  spheres! 
I  know  not  where  they  died  who  loved  my  song; 
I  cannot  suffer;  joy  is  in  my  heart, 
Joy  of  the  far-flown  bird,  the  empty  breast. 
I  go,  but  him  they  could  not  cage  for  death, 
The  bird  whom  I  had  sent  to  fly  and  sing 
From  snowy  Alp  to  Etna's  rosy  cloud; 
He  nests  within  the  heart  of  Italy." 

"  A  great  song  is  a  deed  forever  doing;  " 
Reginald  broke  the  happy  idyl's  close; 
"No  poet  every  truly  tasted  death; 
Yet  in  the  world  that  is,"  low  fell  his  voice, 
Whose  thoughtful  eye  in  long  perspectives  sphered 
The  world  of  action,  "  dead  thy  comrades  are, 


THE   ROAMER  65 

Though  long  thy  verse  enshrine  their  hopes  long 

dead. 

Song-stroke  or  sword-stroke,  action  dies  away; 
Soon  orbs  the  past,  another  dawn  renews 
The  woundless  tyrant,  plated  with  dense  mail, 
And  in  the  selfishness  of  all  his  realm 
More  panoplied  than  in  his  showy  guards. 
In  song  a  land  expires,  it  is  not  born; 
And  all  the  immortal  glories  of  the  lyre, 
The  blazon  of  eternal  memory, 
Are  paeans  of  lost  races  worn  away, 
The  death-chants  of  the  nations  whence  they  rose. 
The  pouring  music  of  the  mighty  world 
Rounds  to  new  ages,  and  a  cycle  dies 
In  each  proud  epic;  mute  the  foughten  field, 
Broken  the  chivalry,  desolate  the  bower, 
Sepulchred  in  the  high-resounding  verse. 
All  music  is  the  requiem  of  the  soul, 
And  breathes  about  the  spirit's  flight  its  dirge, 
And  sorrows  in  its  track  till  heard  no  more." 
He  ended,  lost  in  spaces  far  away. 

But  Victor  followed  where  the  Roamer  marked 
A  lank  form,  blunted  with  a  thought-starved  face, 
That,  like  a  listening  animal  behind 
Intent  lay  crouched;  human  it  seemed,  and  was, 
Dehumanized;  all  head,  all  eyes,  all  ears, 


66  THE   ROAMER 

The  brute  made  brain,  the  crime  intelligent, 
Time's  last-born  type  of  man;  instant  they  saw 
The  black  revolver  pouring  livid  flame, 
And  heard  the  sullen,  detonating  bomb, 
The  dread  of  royal  capitals;  he  laughed, 
And  thinly  the  fierce  smile  laid  bare  his  teeth: 

"  An  ugly  shape,  signore ;  not  bred  like  yours, 
Not  from  the  gods  of  Greece  and  loins  of  Rome, 
Nor  Roncesvalles,  Acre  and  Agincourt; 
Spawned  in  the  European  gutter-slime; 
Us  Paris  pours,  when,  sick  and  ravening, 
The  beast  of  blood  upon  her  entrails  gnaws, 
And  the  state  cries,  '  To  arms,  they  come,  they 

come!  ' 

As  come  they  will  until  the  shuddering  bulk 
Of  government  misused  for  misery 
Reels  and  collapses  in  the  social  fall. 
March  on,  march  on,  great  Host!  guerrillas  we, 
Isolate  scouts  stalking  a  sleepy  world; 
Nor  think  in  horrid  Muscovy  alone 
We  range  and  prosper;  fast  we  multiply 
On  every  barren  crag  where  freedom  clings, 
On  Switzer-peak,  in  high  Calabrian  caves, 
Rhine-cellars,  and  the  Belgian,  Spanish  holes, 
And  where  the  English  speech  rears  her  vast  orb 
O'er  half  the  world,  sheltering  forevermore 


THE    ROAMER  67 

Free  thought,  free  speech,  free  acts,  that  make  free 

men. 

Whene'er  a  king  is  crowned,  our  eyes  are  there; 
Whene'er  a  workman  dies,  our  eyes  are  there; 
Our  eyes  behold  the  crime  on  whole  lands  wrought. 
Berlin  and  Paris  unto  us  are  one, 
And  one  to  us  are  Emperor  and  Pope, 
And  one  to  us  the  working-host  world- wide; 
Race,  country,  faith,  law,  mercy  we  abhor. 
O  angel  of  the  Garibaldian  spears, 
Your  song  we  keep;  nor  only  from  it  learned 
To  drive  the  dagger  in  the  sides  of  kings; 
Far  lower  they  mine  whose  dynamite  is  thought, 
Whose  match,  the  burning  heart!     Wake,  mighty 

world, 

The  tyranny  of  gold  is  doomed,  is  doomed! 
On  lips  of  outcasts  is  the  judgment  framed, 
As  once  before,  that  shakes  futurity; 
Then  comes  the  great  millennium;  but  now 
Kill,  kill,  kill,  kill,  kill!  "  he  cried,  and  ran. 
In  Victor's  eyes  the  glory  of  song  was  dead; 
And  gray  the  smouldering  spark  of  hope  went  out 
That  shone,  their  orbed  life;  the  Roamer  wept, 
But  he  dull-eyed  sat  stark;  and  Reginald  spoke, 
Of  thought's  stern  stuff  compact:  "  Thy  holy  song 
Sang  time's  evangel  pure;  not  unto  us, 


68  THE   ROAMER 

Not  unto  us  the  issue  of  our  words 

Loosed  from  our  lips  in  this  chaotic  world!  " 

And  ere  he  ceased  a  voice  rang  hard  behind: 

"  Ho,  Reginald!  "  confused  words  he  spoke, 
Who  seemed  to  front  the  stars  with  lifted  hand, 
Absorbed  in  passion,  towering  with  rage, 
And  strode  away;  and  Reginald  shuddering  turned: 
"  Cursed  are  they  who  deify  the  Curse; 
But  let  us  hence;  too  many  such  as  these 
Come    hither,    passing    through    the    night.      And 

thou, 
Wide- wanderer,  wherefore  hast  thou  ventured  here?  " 

"  Serving  the  Christ,"  he  said,  "  I  seek  the  lost, 
Who  noble  were,  memory  and  hope  my  guides, 
Through  ways  I  know  not  of,  obeying  God." 

"  Who  names  the  Christ?  "  another  cried  aloud, 
Out  of  the  shadows  starting;  "  on  earth  't  was  said, 
He  sent  a  sword,  not  peace.    I  was  his  Scourge; 
Where  is  the  hand  that  used  me?  "  and  he  fled. 
And  Reginald  rose,  and  drew  them  both  away, 
And  Victor  silent  on  the  left  side  came; 
"Not  all  are  noble  here,"  the  leader  said; 
"  Thousands  there  are  who  haunt  the  region's  base;  " 
And  moving  on,  "  7t  is  best  to  look  on  them 
From  far,  nor  mingle  with  that  multitude;  " 
And  soon  he  brought  them  to  a  low-browed  ridge. 


THE    ROAMER  69 

Westward  they  thronged  upon  the  neighboring 

X 

plain, 

Shut  in  the  low,  flat  hills  whose  shallows  rolled 
To  North  and  South,  as  marshes  by  the  sea, 
Weary  horizons;  dense  the  numerous  camp 
With  torches  flickered,  and  the  blaze  of  fires 
Flared  on  the  surge  of  men  and  sank  in  smoke; 
The  sky  was  reddened  with  the  swarthy  glow. 
Beneath,  the  motley  multitude  immense, 
Whom  frenzy  tore  or  cowering  fear  alarmed, 
Some  feast  engaged,  the  savagery  of  yore, 
And  drove  them  lost  to  many  a  loathed  rite. 
What  fierce  idolatry  was  absent  there? 
What  ritual  of  woe,  what  agony? 
Wild  was  the  sight  and  sharp  the  memory  is: 
Some,  dancing,  cut  their  flesh  with  knives  and  flints, 
A  hideous  jubilee;  some,  further  off, 
In  sullen  rage  or  gibbering  idiocy, 
Did  mutilate  their  members;  boyhood  there 
In  clusters  clung,  and  bright  the  red  fire-flash 
Sprang  from  the  bare,  keen  axes  over  them; 
There  mothers  flung  their  infants  from  their  breasts; 
Maidens  whose  lashes  could  not  veil  their  shame 
To  darkness  went;  them  men  like  beasts  pursued; 
And  every  beast  had  there  his  carnival, — 
The  sea-cave's  brood  and  reptiles  of  the  slime, 


70  THE   ROAMER 

The  jungle's  births  and  dragons  of  the  steep 
Who  made  a  plash  of  gore  where'er  they  trod; 
And  everywhere  the  adder  and  the  asp 
And  all  the  poison-headed  snaky  swarm 
Familiar  through  the  host  crawled  undisturbed, 
And  many  a  stoled  priesthood  gave  them  food. 
There  puffed  the  smoke  and  showered  the  drifting 

sparks 

Like  fiery  scales;  there  geyser-like  the  spouts 
Of  random  flame  thrust  up  with  forking  tongues, 
As  that  dark  waste  were  some  volcanic  quake 
And  all  the  heathen  race  some  fiendish  crew. 
Higher  the  rout,  and  still  new  horror  spawned, 
And  lower  bent  the  abject  populace, 
Defiled  in  body  and  deformed  in  soul, 
Who  served  the  worm  with  bloody  covenants. 
Omens  and  prodigies  before  them  swam, 
The  shapeless  imagery  of  earth's  affright, 
Worse  worship  urging  and  worse  injury: 
The  fiery  breath  that  from  Assyria  blew; 
The  lusts  that  haunt  the  buried  mouths  of  Nile; 
Shadows  that  ride  the  night,  visages  dire, 
Afrites,  and  that  vast  airy  troop  that  made 
A  spectral  conquest  of  imperial  Rome, 
Thessalian  terror;  Druid  witcheries; 
Despairs  and  ecstasies  and  tortures  maimed 


THE   ROAMER  71 

That  India  tombs  within  her  marble  hills, 

Or  snowy  Thibet  in  her  caverns  hides; 

And  whatsoever  else  on  earth's  scarred  face, 

On  Lapland  steppes,  or  Australasian  isles, 

Glares  round  the  holocaust  of  mortal  sin, 

In  horrid  congregation  gathered  there. 

O  brutish  souls!  O  sensual,  brainless  things! 

0  foul  imagination  and  worse  acts, 

What  night  shall  prison,  what  deep  pit  contain, 

What  justice  equal  that  unrighteousness! 

And,  gazing  there,  the  Roamer  bowed  in  shame, 

And  sorrow's  rush  was  as  a  throttling  stream 

Dragging  him  downward  till  it  ebbed  away 

As  if  divine  compulsion  bade  it  die; 

Once  more  the  foul  field  of  the  lust  of  hell 

Burnt  on  his  eyes;  but  he  was  strong  within; 

And  turning  then  to  Reginald's  bitter  smile — 

"My  path  lies  here,"  he  said;   "God's  peace  be 

thine!  " 
"  Thou  wilt  not  try,"  cried  Reginald,  with  swift 

speech; 

"  Here  is  no  passage  save  for  souls  accursed, 
Blind  to  the  light  of  every  glorious  good;  " 
And  wondering  stopped,  and  fixed  on  him  his  gaze; 
"  Spirit  of  God!  "  he  whispered,  "  what  art  thou, 
That  through  thy  mortal  dark  the  soul  doth  shine 


72  THE   ROAMER 

As  if  the  gates  of  heaven  had  sent  thee  forth?  " 
And,  going,  the  Roamer  heard  him  murmur  low — 
"  Keep  him,  O  Shepherd  of  the  ways  of  fire!  " 
And  Victor  blessed  him  with  still  grieving  eyes; 
And  long  they  watched  him  where  he  made  his  way 
Whom  willingly  he  would  have  called  his  own, 
Had  love  consented  that  their  hearts  should  join. 
Then,  plunging  in  the  darkness,  first  he  knew 
The  miracle  that  dawned  upon  their  eyes: 
For  light  fell  from  him  and  in  light  he  walked. 
And  as  a  star  that  rifts  the  drifting  clouds 
He  passed  within  the  roaring  gulf  profane; 
The  spectral  rack  swept  o'er  him,  sin  closed  round; 
And  no  man  saw  him ;  dark  to  them  he  was, 
But  to  his  sight  their  secrecy  lay  bare; 
Nor  legends  of  the  ancient  time  alone, 
Nor  tales  by  travellers  in  far  countries  told, 
Nor  gods  dethroned  and  cities  of  the  dead, 
Beheld  he  merely;  many  a  wanton  sect 
Befouled  Christ's  name,  and  many  a  godless  school 
Blasphemed,  miscalled  by  wisdom's  golden  name, 
Philosophy;  they  cursed  they  knew  not  what. 
He  paused  not  where  their  meagre  dogmas  fell 
No  more  than  where  the  fool  his  orgies  kept, 
Yet  heard  and  saw ;  the  worst  no  lips  can  frame ; 
Nor  now  shall  memory  draw  it  from  the  mire. 


THE   ROAMER  73 

Across  the  plain,  beneath  the  burning  sky, 
He  went,  surveying  all  man's  fell  despair 
Hour  after  hour:  till  faint  the  murmur  grew 
Of  that  great  river  hurrying  to  the  gulf, 
The  flood  and  drift  of  all  the  evil  world; 
And  on  the  further  bank  he  saw  how  pure 
Is  heaven,  how  greatly  it  ennobles  earth. 


THE    ROAMER 
BOOK  III 

"O  SLEEP,  the  kindest  helper  of  the  soul, 

Who,  when  night  comes,  dost  draw  more  nigh  than 

night, 

And  when  thou  goest,  bringest  back  the  day! 
O  first,  sweet  silence  'twixt  the  solemn  prayers 
Of  eve  and  morn,  how  many  peaceful  hours 
My  hands  in  thine  were  folded,  when  a  child! 
And  thou  wast  dearer  with  each  heavy  year, 
And  tenderer  for  the  sorrow  come,  more  soft 
My  head  didst  pillow,  gavest  my  soul  release!  " 
So  rose  the  Roamer's  morning  orison; 
And  never  more  refreshed  from  thee  he  turned 
To  greet  the  golden  East  in  summers  gone, 
Than  when,  dim  Sleep,  thou  gavest  his  spirit  back 
To  the  dark  border;  trembling  he  awoke, 
And  dews  of  gratitude  o'er  flowed  his  eyes 
For  Sleep,  the  helper — kindest  helper,  thou! 
Thou  bearest  half  the  weight  of  all  men's  lives; 
The  load  thy  hand  unloosens  at  the  end; 
Not  without  thee  was  that  far  journey  made. 
74 


THE   ROAMER  75 

But  on,  O  loitering  Song,  nor,  all  too  fond, 
Gaze  on  the  key,  when  thou  shouldst  ope  the  door! 
The  realms  through  which  thou  goest  no  paean  love. 
Let  none  misdoubt,  nor  this  strong  record  weigh 
O'erlightly!  little  heart  have  I  to  feign: 
The  hand  writes  only  what  the  eye  beheld. 

Here,  too,  was  salutation;  song  was  here, 
Breathed  from  a  pipe  by  one  beneath  a  pine, 
So  fair  the  Roamer  never  heard  the  notes, 
Nor  knew  what  happy  pause  his  presence  filled. 
"  Welcome!  "  he  heard,  "  not  to  eternal  things! 
No  longer  the  divine  encounter  hope! 
Here  learn  thou  yet  art  mortal  in  the  mind!  " 
"  Mortal  in  all,"  he  answered,  "  still  heaven's  ray 
Strikes  through  the  precious  oriel  of  the  eye 
Upon  my  spirit."    Risen,  long  gazed  at  him 
That  one  whose  impulse  the  wise  reason  checked. 
"  Is  god-sprung  vigor  in  thy  bones  infused 
That  melt  not  in  this  air?  thou  seemest  man, 
Still  beautiful  to  each  fine  nerve  of  sense, 
As  thou  wouldst  be,  wert  thou  and  I  alive." 
"  Mortal  I  am,"  returned  he ;  "  still  undoomed, 
My  brief  years  yet  await  their  manly  deeds; 
Across  the  spectral  moor  I  come  to  you." 
As  't  were  his  soul's  command,  he  bent  his  gaze 
Who  first  had  spoken.    "  Hath  mortality 


76  THE   ROAMER 

So  long  a  leash?  and  doth  thy  spirit  of  sense 

Pluck  its  gross  nurture  from  this  crystal  air?  " 

"  Across  hell's  moor,  thou  sayest?  "  a  second  spoke. 

"  O  soul  of  daring!  art  thou — "  cried  a  third, 

But  on  his  sentence  broke  the  other's  will: 

"  Thou  livest?  "  and  to  his  lips  some  question  sprang, 

And  died;  "  but  earth  remembers  not  my  name 

That,  to  the  light  ascending,  clouds  o'ertook; 

Whate'er  I  was,  more  I  shall  never  be." 

Then  he,  the  poet,  though  denied  the  bays: 

"  Not  unaccompanied  by  signs  of  grace 

Thou  comest;  o'er  the  fiery  heath,  whose  gloom 

Washes  the  northward,  where  last  night  we  kept 

The  morning  watch,  a  solitary  star, 

Some  heavenly  exile,  slipped  from  God's  white  hosts, 

Moved  beautiful,  as  in  its  element, 

Where  never  blessed  light  was  seen  before. 

Heaven  send  us  good  of  that  bright  augury!  " 

Crimson  and  amber  lapped  the  horizon's  edge 
Like  a  low  sea,  whence  rose  the  dawn,  dark  blue 
Brightening  with  light;  and,  like  a  shallow  cup, 
Immeasurably  broad  with  rolling  moor, 
Slated  with  mist,  the  lowlands  fell  away. 
Morn  laced  the  South  with  mountains  vaporous, 
Translucent  films  and  shining  levels  far, 
With  spots  of  cloud  and  belted  fog  midway, 


THE   ROAMER  77 

Masking  a  land  of  valleys.    Still  the  sun 
Filled  the  vast  scene  with  beauty  ere  he  rose; 
Then  lifted  he  his  head  majestical 
Above  the  rose-bloom  wave  and  amber  glow, 
And  poured  his  glory  on  the  outstretched  world. 
As  't  were  a  group  of  hunters  that  the  dawn 
Islands  in  undiscovered  solitudes, 
Who  look  amazed  on  unknown  loveliness, 
Canyon,  or  cataract,  or  virgin  lake, 
The  embosomed  jewel  of  a  continent, 
There  stood  the  little  company  enthralled, 
Lost  in  their  vision,  in  the  spreading  light 
Suddenly  captive,  silently  ensphered, 
Oblivious,  fascinated,  eye-entranced; 
Nor  longer  hung  they  on  the  Roamer's  breath; 
Some  instinct  urged  them;  swift  they  broke  apart; 
Alone  he  stood,  nor  saw  their  vagrant  forms, 
Coursing  the  gleams  of  morning  far  away. 
He  seemed  to  hail  a  new  creation  there, 
And  from  himself  projected  half  he  saw — 
Thoughts  of  the  heart  and  colors  of  the  mind — 
And  spiritualized  it.    O,  high  miracle! 
Nor  all  unknown  unto  his  boyhood  dawns, 
When  bobolinks  seemed  listening  as  they  sang 
Their  matin  song,  tumbling  the  liquid  notes 
Exultant,  and  to  harken  after  them; 


78  THE   ROAMER 

So  had  he  barkened  his  first  melodies; 
And  as  the  morning,  imaged  in  the  lake, 
Gave  back  the  mirrored  mountain,  hung  aloft, 
Lovelier  than  nature,  so  had  his  young  world 
Exhaled  a  secret  beauty  folded  there, 
That  from  himself  took  its  deep  mystery: 
But  now  his  eyes  beheld  a  greater  morn. 

There  was  an  eminence  not  far  removed, 
Whence  he  could  view  more  nigh  that  pleasant  soil, 
Whose  charms  lay  broadcast  to  his  roving  glance. 
Straight  on  he  wound  by  brook  and  blossoming 

green, 

And  oft  his  gaze,  on  the  wide  prospect  borne 
To  some  horizon  bound  or  skyey  mount, 
A  lonely  mystery,  lingering  stood  fixed; 
Or  from  blown  ridges  of  the  upland  caught 
Firm  lines,  or  flooding  color  from  the  fields; 
And  as  the  broad  rings  from  a  pebble  thrown 
Move  o'er  still  waters  and  lead  on  the  eye, 
So  from  the  fair  point  where  his  sight  reposed, 
By  momentary  beauty  stayed  awhile, 
The  loveliness  of  earth  spread  ever  on, 
O'erflowing  and  embracing  all  he  saw; 
Till,  on  that  mount  arrived,  the  world's  blue  round 
Encircled  him  with  old  familiar  things, 
One  sky,  one  earth,  one  sweet  majestic  whole, — 


THE   ROAMER  79 

Color  and  light  and  shade,  figure  and  size, 

In  due  proportion  and  perspective  true; 

For  choice  creative,  mingling  with  the  sense, 

Taught  his  rich  eye,  by  habit  in  it  grown, 

To  look  on  nature,  and  to  add  the  stamp 

And  earthly  impress  of  the  gazing  soul; 

So  ever  in  the  world  another  world 

Rose  fairer,  by  a  mightier  order  moved; 

Nature,  instinctive,  owned  the  sovereign  mind, 

That  bound  all  things  in  its  own  motion  fast, 

Unconscious,  as  the  dreamer  fills  his  dream. 

The  heavenly  faculty  within  him  wrought, 

And  as  from  chaos  drew  the  lovely  scenes, 

And  hung  them  in  the  porches  of  the  dawn. 

Such  power  of  evocation  oft  he  used, 

His  birthright,  in  far  other  days  than  these, 

And  other  lands,  where  yet  on  rock  and  bough 

The  robe  of  autumn  casts  its  fiery  edge, 

Ruddying  the  pine-grown  amphitheatre, 

And  in  the  ample  distance  fade  away 

Masses  of  golden  woodland  o'er  the  fields; 

Or  where,  long  hours,  the  misty,  climbing  spring 

Wreathes  lake  and  forest,  thicket  and  point  and  isle, 

Yellowing  and -reddening,  and  the  tender  green 

Loops  hill  to  hill,  and  with  the  sudden  bloom 

Of  warm  May  days  the  horizon  dapples  round. 


80  THE   ROAMER 

O  memory-haunted  eyes,  that  learned  the  light 
On  springtime  pastures  of  his  youth,  when  first, 
Sweet  in  his  blood,  the  bud  of  boyhood  broke 
Wide-open  to  the  dalliance  of  the  morn! 
But  here  no  change  of  season  met  his  view, 
Nor  hint  of  birth  or  death;  eternal  seemed 
The  summer  air,  the  landscape,  and  the  sky, 
And  beauty  without  alteration  found. 

Before  him  a  wide  river-bottom  lay, 
Smooth  as  a  floor,  where  clumps  of  elm  and  oak 
Opened  obscure  and  nameless  solitudes, 
Bathing  in  dawn;  in  undiscovered  lands 
Sweep  such  vast  floods  amid  the  fragrant  wild, 
And  wander  many  a  forest-mantled  league 
Unlooked  on,  till  the  lost  explorer  come, 
Tracking  his  hopes.     There  plunged  the  Roamer 

down 

In  that  far  country,  sunken  in  the  West; 
And  all  along  the  steep  precipitous 
The  mobile  scene  made  pictures  as  he  went, 
That  borrowed  nothing  from  the  poet's  eye; 
The  landscape  recomposed  at  every  step 
With  change  kaleidoscopic,  ever  new, 
And  crag,  and  pass,  and  vistas  opening  heaven 
Cast  dreaming  beauty  in  that  air  divine, 
Like  shadows  in  the  stream  of  being  flung. 


THE   ROAMER  8  I 

So  high  above  the  fair  Salernian  gulf, 

O'er  little  Positano,  breaks  the  cliff, 

A  thousand  pictures  in  enchanted  skies; 

Warm  glows  the  morn,  far  heavenward  climbs  the 

eye, 

And  the  sea  leaves  its  azure  borders  bare. 
Thus  through  great  loveliness,  hour  after  hour, 
The  Roamer  dropped  unto  the  shining  plain. 
Nor  less  in  beauty  rose  the  further  world, 
Nor  more  ceased  he  to  gaze;  for  everywhere 
The  seeing  of  his  eyes  was  magical. 
A  land  of  faery!  there  the  mutable 
Eternal  seemed,  though,  every  moment  changed, 
It  lapsed,  and  came  again,  the  world  divine. 
The  lights  of  Turner,  Constable,  Corot 
Imparadised  the  earthly  tabernacle 
Of  mortal  beauty;  and  whatever  tinct 
In  later  times  discloses  marvellous 
The  revelation  of  the  eye,  whose  beam 
Worships  devout  in  nature's  sanctuary 
Of  light,  flung  forth  the  garment  of  the  world, — 
Color  divine,  the  prime  of  heavenly  things, 
Robe  of  the  infinite,  ethereal  weave, 
Ageless  with  spacious  tissues,  dawn  and  dark. 
How  many  memories  hung  upon  his  eyes! 
How  many  raptures,  native  to  his  heart, 


82  THE   ROAMER 

Reincarnations  of  our  glorious  dust, 

Loaded  his  sight!  tall  peak  and  brooding  sky 

Peopled  his  mind  with  long  since  vanished  shapes 

Of  classic  woe  and  mythic  mystery, 

That  spoke  the  tongues  of  unrecorded  time, — 

Antique  religion,  dark  with  human  fate. 

What  lands,  what  ages  there  stretched  out  the  world! 

One  tract  was  full  of  echoes  of  the  dead, 

Thick  with  deep  valleys  of  tranquillity 

After  life's  labor  done,  and  dim  with  hills, 

Where  the  pine  whispered  to  the  whispering  plane, 

And  shepherd  unto  shepherd  loved  and  sang. 

All  the  selectest  moments  of  his  life 

Seemed  there  upgathered  in  their  visible  form. 

Ay  me!  how  far  it  rolled,  that  golden  haze! 

Here  Fontainebleau  opened  its  woodlands  warm; 

There  Brittany  chanted  its  pastorals; 

Lone  oleanders  in  the  gullies  flamed; 

Now  every  blossom  starred  the  summer  grass, 

And  now  the  wild  path  through  the  wild  shrub  ran; 

And,  as  the  long  striped  grasses  of  the  sea 

Breathe  odors  on  the  pure  and  saline  air 

Sweet-scented,  fragrance  roused  him,  rich  and  keen, 

Where  rounded  masses  of  exotic  bloom 

Rivalled  in  vain  the  morning  flowers  of  song. 

"  O  rose,  in  which  Hafiz  had  lodged  the  world!  " 


THE    ROAMER  83 

He  murmured,  'mid  caresses  of  his  hand; 

"  And  thou,  white  lily,"  cried  he,  "  fit  to  sleep 

In  Mary's  bosom! — what  garden-close  is  this?  " 

He  marvelled;  and  started  back,  as  at  his  face 

Seen  in  a  pool,  so  instant  came  the  Shade, 

And  instant  spoke,  with  challenge  courteous: 

"  Who  art  thou  in  this  solitude  supreme, 

That  wearest  on  thy  cheek  the  rose  of  youth 

And  in  thy  eyes  so  sweet  a  violet?  " 

"  A  pilgrim  come  I,  seeking  heavenly  things," 

The  Roamer  said.    "  On  earth  thy  answer  find!  " 

And  with  the  motion  of  his  lifted  arm 

He  seemed  to  comprehend  the  beauteous  whole; 

More  than  with  words  the  gesture  gave  reply; 

Sternly  he  spoke,  albeit  with  accents  pure, 

And  long  perused  the  Roamer,  silent  found. 

"  Earth  be  thy  answer!  only  from  earthly  things 

Created  is  this  fleeting  paradise, 

The  abode  of  the  delaying  souls  of  men 

A  little  while,  the  spirit's  after-glow, 

Ere  all  descend  into  the  starless  dark. 

As  moons  and  comets  die,  so  sinks  a  Race, 

After  its  blaze  of  glory  quite  extinct, 

To  wander  lampless  the  creative  void. 

How  fair  it  stood,  our  Race!  not  that,  I  mean, 

Which  from  the  gates  of  Eden  issued  curst, 


84  THE   ROAMER 

But  that  which  dreamt,  in  sad  and  lonely  hearts 
Of  lovelier  Edens  than  their  earthly  fields, 
And  brought  the  mortal  seed  to  heavenly  flower. 
O  mystic  Might!  that  from  the  soul  puts  forth 
Its  blossom,  lighting  heaven,  till  it  shall  close 
Far  off  and  fallen  in  the  unforeseeing  deep! 
Wonderful,  Earth,  from  thy  dark  soil  it  comes, 
Flower  of  the  spirit,  in  highest  heaven  up-borne, 
Supreme  of  things,  far-shining,  the  Ideal! 
Clothed  on  with  beauty  of  the  world  below, 
That  from  the  mortal  senses  takes  its  form 
And  radiance, — not  alone  the  outer  frame 
Of  eye  and  ear  and  touch,  material  things, 
But  all  that  loveliness  within  the  soul, 
The  holy  burden  of  its  great  ideas, 
The  splendor  of  its  passions  unto  death, 
Wrapping  the  world  in  little  spiritual  flames, — 
How  mounts  the  Dream!    up!    up! — born  of  the 

dust!— 

Brighter  than  lifted  once  on  glory's  height 
The  Sacred  Way,  that  loudest  oft  proclaimed 
Earth's   victor,   thronged  with   captives   and   with 

spoils, 

Where  consul-captains  of  great  Rome  enthroned 
Drew  their  long  triumphs  to  the  Capitol! 
They  on  their  shoulders  bore  the  mighty  world: 


THE   ROAMER  85 

But  here,  the  soaring  soul  on  outstretched  wings 

Bears  up  the  precious  burden  of  all  hope 

Through  dim  and  starry  deeps,  the  charge  of  heaven. 

How  wan  it  grows,  and  waxes  gray  with  time! 

Beauty  and  glory  die,  and  love  hath  end; 

Mary  and  Magdalen  are  made  one  dust; 

And  all  things  turn  to  phantoms,  fade,  and  cease. 

Only  a  little  while  those  glories  stand 

That  rose  unto  eternal  memory. 

Great  kings,  dead  emperors,  in  trance  and  dream, 

Augustan  shapes,  grave,  beautiful,  divine, 

Each  in  his  shroud  of  empire  as  he  lived, 

Revisit  my  old  eyes,  that  see  no  more 

Immortal  things!  "    Reentering  in  himself, 

He  vanished,  and  the  breast  of  the  Unknown 

Received  him  unto  his  eternal  place. 

A  voice  rang  out,  far-distant:  "  Where  are  they, 
Whose  names  sound  vaguely  on  this  hollow  air, 
The  fiery  Intercessors,  once  proclaimed? 
I  served  them;  for  they  sent  me  in  my  youth 
Visions  that  lit  the  sunlight;  the  thin  dawn 
Was  thronged  with  angels  bearing  trophied  palms 
Toward  a  great  light,  far  rising  in  the  East; 
All  flowers  breathed  incense  round  me  up  to  heaven ; 
The  thoughts  of  men  passed  o'er  me,  shining  flights ; 
And  many  a  nation  then  grew  great  of  soul, 


86  THE   ROAMER 

Whose  names,  heard  in  my  brain,  bred  mighty  forms, 

Like  tall  angelic  spirits  of  the  spheres 

On  balanced  planets  rushing,  fiery  orbs; 

Athene,  Rome,  Albion,  America 

Whirled  forward,  kindling  time.    How  should  man 

fail? 

And  ever  from  the  deep  sprang  destiny, 
And  to  fresh  ages  gave  another  morn. 
I  served  because  I  believed, — a  single  man 
Among  the  phantom  nations.    Long  I  believed; 
For  when  I  brooded  once  the  wrack  of  time, 
A  fire  arose  within  my  living  bones, 
And  rapt  me,  prophet-wise,  out  of  that  flesh 
Which  yet  engarbs  my  thought,  models  my  words, 
Into  the  thoughtless,  wordless  infinite, 
Where  truth  abides;  great  radiance  entered  in 
The  temple  of  my  being,  that  shook  and  flamed 
With  silent  thunders  of  another  world, 
Heard  in  the  soul, — and,  heard,  they  died  away ; 
And  often,  gazing  on  a  fragile  flower, 
Or  little  acts  of  mute,  unconscious  love, 
Or  listening  to  dim  stories  of  old  wars, 
I  grew  aware  of  some  transcendent  sphere, 
Of  which  these  were  the  brief,  decaying  forms; 
And,  grown  a  man,  seized  in  the  mystic  sweep 
Of  that  which  comes  and  goes  without  a  name, 


THE   ROAMER  87 

Up  to  the  heaven  of  heavens  was  I  caught, 
Whirled  like  a  leaf,  and  dropped,  a  withered  thing. 
Those  musings,  insights,  transports, — whence  were 

they? 

That  made  the  pulses  of  my  beating  blood 
Voices  of  the  unknown  Ineffable, 
And  dipped  my  eyes  in  prophecy  and  gleam 
Of  what  the  Intercessors  half  disclose, — 
Poet  and  sculptor,  painter,  sage,  musician, 
The  wisdom-lovers,  heaven-dreamers  all? 
They,  and  their  progeny,  like  leaves  decay. 
Where  is  the  resurrection,  O  dry  bones? 
Answer,  ye  valleys  of  the  sepulchre!  " 
The  solitary  echo  paused  afar. 

Nigh,  from  a  clump  of  laurel,  rose  a  voice: 
"  Would  I  had  known  thee  in  the  world  below, 
Athenian,"  the  Roamer  heard  one  say; 
And,  looking,  saw  comrade  with  comrade  couched 
Companionable,  in  friendly  converse  linked. 
The  hyacinthine  locks  clung  round  a  head 
Apollo  might  have  loved,  so  like  a  flower 
The  fair  face  gave  itself  unto  the  light. 
The  beauty  of  twenty  centuries  yet  shone, 
Immortal  youth,  upon  his  form  divine, 
And  in  his  eyes  a  joyful  radiance  showed 
The  dawning  of  the  soul.    "  O  beautiful, 


88  THE   ROAMER 

Incarnating  the  forces  of  the  world 

That  house  in  thee  a  moment,  and  the  house 

Grows  radiant  with  the  presence  of  the  gods 

That  shine  therefrom,"  tender  and  resonant, 

The  elder  voice  began,  "  whence  came  this  mould 

To  be  thy  image,  and  envelop  thee, 

Imageless  beauty,  given  unto  love 

Within  the  heart,  and  known  unto  thyself 

A  shadow  in  time's  stream, — no  more?  "    A  smile 

Played  on  the  lips  of  the  immortal  youth: 

"  Such  came  I,  body  and  spirit,  from  the  gods, 

The  blossom  of  the  will  divine,  that  breaks 

To  blossom  in  the  heavens  and  earth'  and  seas, 

The  glow  of  life,  and  mystic  hearts  of  men." 

"  As  comes  the  rose  upon  the  swaying  stalk, 

So  hast  thou  budded  on  life's  wind-swayed  reed, 

Making  it  fair,"  the  rising  voice  began 

To  wing  the  golden  words,  "  for  from  the  soul 

Only  flows  beauty  forth  upon  the  world. 

The  soul  creates  its  world;  and  blest  art  thou 

Who  thus  dost  realize  thyself  in  life, 

Making  thee  beautiful."    Slow  spake  the  youth: 

"  Such  am  I,  as  when  first  I  looked  upon 

My  image  in  my  heart;  and,  though  I  change, 

Such  shall  I  be,  I  know,  at  the  last  day." 

"  Alone  and  single  in  thy  loveliness 


THE    ROAMER  89 

Thou  art  forever,"  answered  that  pure  voice, 

Which  spoke  o'erawed  with  higher  mystery, 

Solemn,  deep-breathed,  profound:  "  the  spirit  shares 

The  eternity  of  beauty  seated  there 

In  the  soul's  essence,  there  its  realm  and  throne; 

Yet  hath  the  soul  full  many  an  earthly  change. 

With  worship  and  desire  its  life  begins, 

With  love  and  adoration  for  the  good 

That  most  releases  it  in  power  and  joy, 

And  most  absorbs  its  joy  and  power  released. 

Fore-seen,  fore-felt,  fore-known  in  the  ideal, 

Beauty,  wherewith  it  shall  itself  be  clothed 

And  grow  incarnate,  maddens  the  young  soul, 

As  if  the  unhewn  statue  in  the  block 

Should  passion  for  itself;  the  poet  so, 

Until  he  be  disburdened  of  his  song, 

Is  with  prophetic  inspiration  mad; 

And  as  the  sculptor  frees  the  marble  god, 

And  poets'  fancies  people  oft  the  air, 

The  soul  embodies  mortally,  and  knows, 

In  passions,  tastes,  and  appetites  achieved, 

Its  form  and  image,  seen  in  this  dim  sphere. 

Thus  builds  it  outwardly  its  mortal  shell, 

Experience,  its  stamp  and  other  self, 

Making  apparent  what  its  nature  is. 

Here,  in  experience,  as  in  clay,  it  works. 


90  THE   ROAMER 

Assuming  form,  itself  the  masterpiece 

Emerging  beautiful  for  love's  delight; 

And  ever,  more  incarnating  the  fair, 

So  grows  it  dear,  and  cherished  by  the  gods: 

But  first  must  heavenly  beauty  bathe  its  eyes." 

"  Hard  is  experience,"  the  youth  replied, 

"  That  works  with  fate  and  chance;  other  to  me 

The  revelation  was  that  cleansed  my  sight, — 

Imagination's  world;  there  elder  men 

Made  their  emotions  and  ideas  a  voice 

Of  aspiration  and  accomplishment 

Unto  mankind;  oft  on  their  lips  I  hung, 

Lifting  my  eyes  to  the  fair  sight  they  saw, 

Painted,  or  carven,  or  visionary  sung, — 

Infinite  forms  in  one  eternal  found; 

And  oft  themselves  ensouled  what  seemed  most  fair. 

So  with  sweet  passion  for  the  master's  face 

Did  my  own  soul  put  on  immortal  form, 

Clothed  with  that  ray,  and  grew  in  fond  desire 

Of  inward  purity  and  outward  grace, 

Patterned  upon  the  heroes  and  the  gods; 

For,  in  that  plastic  world  of  art  and  thought, 

Easy  the  growth  is  of  immortal  souls." 

"  Imagination  hath  a  higher  truth 

Than  scant  reality,"  the  voice  returned; 

"  Experience  it  concentrates  and  refines, 


THE   ROAMER  91 

Frees  it  from  time,  and  shapes  creation's  stuff 

In  likeness  of  the  mind's  ideal  world; 

Thence  hath  our  sight  its  visionary  ray 

Wherein  the  painter  and  the  sculptor  see, 

The  poet  dreams,  the  lover  lives  forlorn; 

Thence  music  feeds  on  harmonies  divine; 

Beauty  the  soul  creates  it  hath  from  thence, 

And,  in  creating,  takes  that  beauty's  form; 

That  world,  once  seen,  the  soul  puts  beauty  forth, 

Bloom  after  bloom,  and  men  who  look  on  it 

Enamored  are  and  like  unto  it  grow; 

Then  speeds  the  heart  of  youth  to  the  most  fair, 

What  fascinates  it  most,  most  imitates; 

Such  passion  most  maketh  it  beautiful. 

So  soul  takes  form  of  beauty  it  beholds 

And  images;  yet  far  more  oft  't  is  seen 

In  mortal  raiment  of  divine  desire; 

Its  heavenly  thirst  increases  without  end; 

Unslaked  its  passion,  wonderful  it  glows, 

And  fills  its  earthly  sphere  with  unknown  light: 

Then  shines  apparent  the  eternal  part 

In  the  soul's  nature,  homesick  for  the  fair, 

And  ever  fairer  as  it  turneth  home: 

So  grows  the  soul  to  mortals  manifest." 

"  Love  is  the  great  creator  ";  the  reply 

Came  with  the  heart's  voice  in  it,  musical 


92  THE   ROAMER 

With  rich,  unspent  emotions,  deep  with  youth; 
"  Let  others  paint  the  lily  and  the  rose, 
Let  others  carve  the  mortal  and  the  god, 
Let  others  pour  celestial  harmonies, 
So  may  Love  give  me  to  be  pure  within, 
And  wear  on  earth  his  heavenly  form!  "    He  ceased, 
And  as  with  silver  trumpets  rang  the  wood, 
A  blare  of  music,  and  the  laurel  leaves 
Rustled,  and  silence  made  the  sound  more  sweet. 
Ere  to  the  Roamer's  lips  had  sprung  the  voice 
That  rose  within  his  heart,  the  tense  scene  broke, 
As  fades  weird  magic  at  the  spoken  word; 
Only,  far  South,  a  glimmering  water  shone; 
A  wind  woke  moaning  overhead;  a  pine, 
Framing  the  offing,  cried  aloud.    He  saw 
The  glimmering  water,  heard  the  pine's  great  cry, 
As  if  they  were  but  portions  of  himself, — 
So  passion  wrought,  ebbing  from  ear  and  eye, 
Body  and  soul,  discharging  the  rapt  mood. 
"  Great  nature's  frame!  "  he  murmured  low,  "  O 

Thou, 

The  awful  emanation  of  the  mind, 
The  base  and  apex  of  creative  power, 
So  vast,  so  trackless,  so  impenetrable! 
A  cyclone,  whirling  in  the  wilderness! 
A  water-spout  on  the  untravelled  sea! 


THE    ROAMER  93 

Eddy  of  mortal  dust!  O  infinite  Sphere, 
How  far  thou  stretchest,  illimitable  dream! 
Path  of  the  Light!  mould  of  the  earthly  soul! 
The  Phantom  of  all  Immanence!     Unknown!  " 
His  shining  face  seemed  listening  to  the  vague 
He  searched  with  restless  eyes;  a  surf  of  cloud 
Broke  on  the  distant  highlands,  glittering  spurs, 
Whose  foothills,  rounding  up  in  wooded  knolls, 
Arose  to  meet  him  coming,  from  afar. 
Ridges  of  broken  country  lay  between, 
Outcropping  limestone  over  meadowy  gulfs, 
Green  laps  of  summer;  lakes  like  gems  were  set, 
And  many  a  vaporous  glen,  far  palisade, 
Led  the  eye  captive  through  the  violet  haze, 
Where  the  great  river  wandered  down  the  west; 
But  he  turned  southward  toward  that  watery  sheen. 
Young  was  the  heart  that  looked  on  the  fair  world ; 
Young  was  the  foot  that  bent  down  flower  and  fern 
Across  the  valley;  many  a  faery  ring 
He  trod  in  the  still  forest,  unespied; 
And  many  a  caverned  gnome,  deep  underground, 
Heard  his  faint  footfall,  and  the  elfin  bands, 
Hidden  by  bush  and  covert,  listened  nigh. 
So,  fancy-bound  and  beauty-thralled,  he  roved 
New  pastures,  not  like  those,  severe  and  pure, 
Where  first  he  swept  the  pine-bough  by,  and  saw 


94  THE   ROAMER 

The  sea,  aye  echoing  eternity. 

Other  this  soil,  rich  with  the  rose-leaf  mould 

Of  beauty  dead,  breathed  forth  mortality. 

Death  choked  the  vital  air,  as  on  he  went, 

The  death  of  beauty ;  here,  pink-petalled,  fell 

The  boy-loved  arethusa,  golden-tongued, 

In  the  black  swamp-land,  moccasins  by  the  pine; 

And  every  flower  bade  memory  farewell. 

Oft  he  deplored  the  blue  hepatica, 

The  earliest  darling  of  the  wood,  the  hills 

Long  since  deflowered,  whereon  the  laden  bloom 

Of  mountain-laurel  crowned  his  summers  up 

With  sorrow,  and  the  faces  of  old  springs 

Hung  o'er  the  last  year's  brown  and  withered  leaves. 

O  young  and  tender  heart  that  saw  the  earth 

Grown  sad  with   beauty   gone, — "Ay!    this   long 

time!  » 

He  swept  the  sighing  words  from  youthful  lips: 
"  The  grave  spans  all  things  with  a  little  space! 
Shut  in  the  rose  are  summer's  obsequies! 
Death  links  with  death!  "  and  higher  rose  his  strain: 
"  All  things  decay  and  vanish,  changing  form, 
The  infinite  variable.    The  rainbow's  arch 
Is  baseless,  and  the  azure  firmament, 
Drifted  with  snowy  mountains,  range  on  range, 
Shuts,  as  the  lily;  all  that's  in  the  world 


THE    ROAMER  95 

Hath  but  its  moment  of  infinity, 

And  no  continuance  anywhere  is  found 

Save  in  the  One,  the  Formless,  undiscerned. 

Hath  heaven  heard  Him,  in  what  skies  He  dwells? 

A  million  orbs  divide  the  region  up; 

A  million  beauties  multiply  on  earth; 

A  million  joys  traffic  in  all  men's  hearts. 

Seek  ye  in  multitudes  the  Infinite  One? 

Seek  ye  in  mortal  bloom  the  Heavenly  Rose? 

Seek  ye  in  endless  nothingness  the  Whole? 

Innumerable  annihilation  gnaws, 

And  infinite  division,  multiplied, 

Unbinds  the  universe.    Look  you,  how  swift 

The  flood  of  waters  sweeps  Niagara's  fall! 

The  hanging  mass  pours  its  eternal  curve; 

It  sinks  in  billowing  drifts  of  radiant  spray, 

And  each  drop  shares  the  rainbow,  rising  up; 

And  the  deep,  fallen  river  chafes  along, 

And  never  more  repairs  its  majesty. 

Even  so  dissolves  the  godless  universe." 

And  ever,  speaking,  he  in  thought  beheld 

Proteus,  the  god,  sweet  Aden's  garden  saw, 

And  all  the  mystery  of  life  and  death, 

Nature's  hard  miracle.    "  The  seasons  change: 

'T  is  birth, — 't  is  death, — 't  is  resurrection, — aye 

The  infinite  cycle  on  itself  returns 


96  THE   ROAMER 

And  pauses  not.    Thy  moment  live!  "    He  ceased, 
And  brightly  leaped  the  fountain  of  his  blood 
Recurrent ;  joy  revisited  his  eyes, 
And  beauty  on  his  senses  stole  anew, 
Not  now  ideal,  the  pattern  of  the  gods, 
But  earthly,  with  the  dyes  and  stains  of  time. 
A  deeper  bloom,  a  more  mysterious  glow 
Burned  in  the  hollows  of  the  wilderness 
In  whose  rich  glooms  he  sank;  in  that  wide  land 
A  loftier  melancholy  ruled, — it  lay 
So  beautiful,  so  desolate,  so  alone, 
Like  a  deserted  paradise,  grown  wild. 
Noon-weirdness  came  out  of  the  mounded  hills; 
A  glamour  lay  on  the  dim  roll  of  plains, 
Whose  far  horizons  he  should  never  cross; 
And  endless  seemed  the  reaches  of  the  wasts, 
Calling  him  ever  to  its  unknown  heart 
Afar;  and  on  his  soul  prophetic  fell 
The  shadow  of  a  yonder  world,  not  ours, 
Where  man  is  not,  nor  any  human  thought, 
Nor  norm  of  truth  or  beauty  or  delight, 
But  the  great  globe,  untenanted  of  mind, 
Pure  nature,  rolls  in  the  ethereal  void; 
And  deeper  glowed  the  dye  in  the  dark  rose, 
And  more  fantastic  now  the  orchid  sprawled 
Its  errant  beauty,  and  on  wandering  thoughts 


THE   ROAMER  97 

Came  drifting  images,  follies,  grotesques, 

Hallucinations;  them  he  could  not  match 

With  truth  more  ancient  than  the  heavens  and  earth, 

The  truth  of  reason;  as  from  dreams  he  woke 

To  see,  drawn  nigh,  the  glimmering  water  lift 

Horizons  vague,  arms  of  an  inland  sea 

By  brimming  marshes;  and  a  cypress  grove, 

Along  the  hither  edge  of  that  full  flood, 

Cast  on  it  glooms  indissolubly  deep. 

"  Here  might  some  dragon  deity  have  dwelt, 

And  woe  inhabited  the  wood,"  he  mused. 

Hard  underfoot  the  bare  and  blanching  soil 

Grew  skeletonized  with  ribbed  and  naked  rock. 

Black  in  the  sun,  the  creeping  shadow  fell 

Upon  him,  entering  the  sepulchral  grove; 

Its  huge,  columnar  stems,  flame-like,  rose  up, 

Lifting  a  pointed  gloom  in  burning  skies, 

And  buried  him  amid  an  antique  wood 

Of  mossy  trunks  and  massive  growth;  above, 

Heaven's  broken  spaces  glimpsed;  below,  'twas 

night, 

And  in  the  heart  thereof  vast  avenues 
Opened  their  hoar,  impenetrable  ways; 
Whereat  he  paused  and  pondered.    The  thick  air 
Seemed  thronged  with  unseen  beings ;  obscure  shapes 
Pressed  on  him  in  the  dusk,  unearthly  things, 


98  THE   ROAMER 

Ghastly,  fantastic,  elongate,  macabre; 
Spectral  they  moved,  like  monsters  in  sea-depths, 
Eye-witchcraf t ;  dim  his  eerie  sight  beheld, 
Midmost  a  stagnant  pool  that  barred  his  way, 
A  fringe  of  rushes  round  a  phantom  isle; 
Silence  engirt  it,  and  a  dreadful  calm. 
Afar  he  heard  the  inland  waters  beat 
The  desert  strand, — a  fall,  and  then  a  roar 
Of  grinding  pebbles  under  the  hoarse  wave; 
And  on  him  swept  the  mystery  of  his  birth, 
That  fused  his  being  with  the  visible  scene, 
And  made  his  senses  voices  of  the  soul. 
There,  standing  on  the  edges  of  the  world, 
He  seemed  to  hear  the  ceaseless  surge  of  thought 
Breaking  on  nature,  and  himself  was  drawn 
In  the  dark  undertow  down  unknown  deeps, 
And  aye  in  him  the  climbing  thought  again 
Made  up  the  steeps  of  life  in  breaking  waves, — 
And,  like  an  echo,  there  a  spirit  stood: 
"  O  fallen  star  of  morning  beautiful, — 
But  sad  thy  beauty," — the  deep  voice  began — 
"  Why  comest  thou,  breath  of  the  living  flesh, 
From  the  lost  lands  of  unfulfilled  desire 
Into  the  waste  and  turmoil  of  this  death? 
Not  of  our  race,  thee  other  gods  protect." 
A  fire-tongued  crescent  blazed  upon  his  brow, 


THE 


Emerging  from  the  darkness^  jpMai^ 

A  serpent  wand,  tipped  with  a  pine-tree  cone, 

Proclaimed  him  Bacchanal;  like  bronze  he  shone, 

The  form  and  feature  of  an  antique  land, 

Ionian  Asia,  rich  in  old  decay. 

"  Other  my  gods,"  the  Roamer  said,  "  't  is  true; 

But  not  my  heart.    What  place  of  'woe  is  this?  " 

"  Thy  full  brows  show  thee  a  creator  born  ; 

But  here  is  discreation.    Avaunt!  "  he  cried; 

"  Fly  the  mad  region!  fly  the  woeful  strand, 

Where  beauty  dies  a  thousand  deaths  in  vain! 

For  vain  the  death  is  of  immortal  things, 

Though  ceaseless  is  their  dying  in  the  world." 

The  Roamer  marked  the  intellectual  face, 

Heavy  with  thought  and  passion.    "  Nay,"  he  said, 

"  I  pray  thee  to  unfold  this  mystic  death." 

Quick  was  the  answer,  as  from  one  in  haste, 

Touching  the  main  of  wisdom's  wide  discourse, 

As  if  profound  in  nature's  element: 

"  Formless  is  death  ;  but  life  is  infinite  form, 

And  beauty  is  the  charm  upon  it  spread, 

As  on  the  flower  of  youth  its  golden  bloom. 

Instinctive  passion  for  the  beautiful 

Is  the  soul's  character;  at  sight  inflamed 

With  swift  desire  itself  itself  endues 

In  the  fair  forms  through  which  its  nakedness 


tOO  THE   ROAMER 

J/j  'Finds  an  jiip^a^e  nature,  and  fulfills 

Its  heavenly  vigor,  shines,  and  triumphs  most; 

So,  form  by  form,  it  mounts  eternal  life. 

Let  passion  fail,  and  that  keen  sight  be  lost, 

Soon  with  defect  comes  dissolution  on, 

Progressive  ugliness  and  foul  decay; 

Depraved,  deformed,  disorganized,  and  dull, 

One  with  its  form  disintegrate,  it  sinks 

And  vanishes,  withdrawn  into  the  deep 

That  inexhaustibly  pours  forth  fair  forms. 

Hence,  ere  they  come!  "    He  pointed  with  his  wand 

Where  streamed  a  troop  of  Maenads  through  the 

wood, 

Tumultuous  breasts,  with  torches  and  with  cries, 
And  with  his  gesture  made  the  Roamer  dark, 
While  yet  remote  the  leopard-skins  went  by, 
Mottled  like  shadows  of  deep  forest  dells, 
And  the  hoar  wood  with  dying  frenzies  rang: 
"  Woe  to  Adonis!     Dionysus,  woe!  " 
He  raised  the  pine-cone,  as  a  wine-cup  up, 
At  the  dread  name;  unseen,  they  echoed  on, — 
"  Woe  to  the  singer,  Orpheus!  "  mystic  calls. 
"  Thy  way  is  lost;  there  is  no  harbor  here. 
To  each  his  fate!    I  read  thy  brow."    The  eyes 
Of  the  dark  spirit,  wells  of  wonder,  burned. 
"  Keep  thou  the  heights !   Follow  the  water-course, — 


THE   ROAMER 

Thy  guide  the  furthest  peakj^T 

And  waited  no  response,  but  instant  went; 

Yet  oft  his  face,  reverted,  backward  shone, 

With  the  rapt  look  that  owns  a  master  race 

Suddenly  seen,  miraculous,  divine. 

But  the  warned  Roamer  fled  the  haunted  ground, 

And,  lifting  up  his  eyes,  he  saw,  above, 

The  lonely  peak  in  heaven,  and  knew  the  sign. 

After  brief  interval  he  found  the  place, 
A  valley,  folded  in  the  mounded  hills, 
Frequent  with  fall  and  chasm,  gorge  and  height. 
Eastward,  the  mass  of  shadow,  lengthening,  fell; 
And,  darkening,  hill  by  hill  gave  up  its  crown. 
"  An  hour,  ere  sunset,  yet  is  mine,"  he  said. 
The  waterfall  came  down  in  snowy  sheets, 
Foaming  from  shelf  to  shelf  of  bowery  green, 
A  dropping  river;  thrice  it  laced  the  air, 
Filled  the  loud  vale,  and  misted  flower  and  leaf 
Of  the  rich  verdure  on  its  emerald  sides. 
He  crossed  the  channel  upon  fallen  stones; 
Up  through  the  blossomy  depths  he  made  his  way 
Amid  the  noise  of  waters  and  the  charm 
Of  the  still  landscape  in  eve's  parting  hour; 
And  twice  he  rested ;  twice  in  calm  repose 
The  storm  of  waters  held  him  round  enisled 
With  the  sweet  peace  of  beauty,  isolate 


ROAMER 

H  the Ow.orld  beside — O  blessed  grace! 
And  now  he  rose  on  the  third  crag.    Far  west, 
O'er  lofty  plains  the  sun  yet  poured  his  light, 
And,  a  blue  cone,  the  lonely  mountain  towered. 
"New  lands!  "  the  Roamer  sighed;   but  ere  the 

breath 

Had  left  his  lips,  he  saw  a  figure  stand 
As  one  who  waits  beside  the  way:  "  Faint  not! 
Remember  from  how  far  thou  earnest!  "    The  words 
Fell  like  a  benediction,  angel- winged. 
Compact  of  sweet  affections  was  the  voice, 
That  soothed  the  air;  hushed  was  the  atmosphere; 
Tranquil  all  things  waited  day's  golden  close. 
Again  the  figure  spoke:  "  Far  I,  too,  came 
To  greet  thee  on  the  road  of  mystery 
Thou  followest,  even  from  yon  shining  mount, 
The  font  and  origin  of  all  pure  sight. 
There  is  the  head  of  this  rich-dropping  stream, 
Which  seeks  the  under- world ;  in  that  high  air 
Shadow  and  substance  roll  a  common  flood, 
One  in  the  other,  and  the  wave  so  clear 
That  only  by  the  image  is  it  seen. 
Not  light  itself  hath  such  lucidity. 
In  such  a  stream  Narcissus  saw  of  yore 
The  image  of  himself, — which  was  the  world 
All  subtly  changed  into  the  beautiful 


THE   ROAMER  1 03 

Shape  that  gazed  on  him  from  his  young  heart's 

depth. 

So  mortals  see,  in  the  dim  dusk  of  earth — 
Shadow  that  is,  but  substance  that  shall  be — 
The  infinite  beauty  of  the  world  diverse 
Grow  one  and  integral  in  fairest  forms; 
But  if  the  sight  clouds  o'er,  and  evil  thoughts 
Mar  and  distort  those  images  of  grace, 
They  perish,  soul  and  image,  as  thou  sawest 
In  the  dark  wood  of  warped,  degenerate  things, 
Returning  to  the  uncreated  deep. 
But,  let  the  soul  retain  its  native  ray, 
Which  is  the  master-spirit  of  the  eye, 
It  penetrates  the  beauteous  shows  of  things 
(Such  is  its  nature)  to  the  infinite 
That  round  embosoms  it."    "  Glimpses  of  this 
My  first  years  knew,"  the  Roamer  thoughtful,  said. 
And  ocean  memories  drifted  through  his  mind; 
"  I  do  remember  me  of  my  dim  birth 
Beside  a  pine-hung  shore;  now  mythic  lands 
Hold  less  of  mystery  than  that  low  coast 
Where  first,  a  boy,  I  counted  the  ninth  wave, 
And  saw  it  through  the  emerald  swell  and  gleam, 
Make  to  the  beach,  and  comb,  and  fall,  and  shoot 
Up  to  my  feet  its  bright,  smooth-sliding  foam, 
While  the  long  wave  resounded  down  the  sands, 


IO4  THE   ROAMER 

And  the  blown  spray  bedewed  me:  whence  my  heart, 

Like  a  sea-shell,  hath  in  it  sounding  seas, 

Echoing  forever.    There  my  childhood  grew 

With  pure  attachments  bound,  spontaneous  joys, 

To  the  sea's  being;  all  the  wave  endues 

With  light  and  color  shared  my  boyhood  blood, 

And  made  itself  the  framework  of  my  thoughts 

And  channel  of  my  feelings;  and,  ofttimes, 

Awe  came  upon  me,  unintelligible, 

In  presence  of  the  simple  things  of  earth, 

The  dawn,  the  breeze,  the  stars,  beside  the  sea. 

In  the  long  years  of  that  sea-shepherding 

There  was  one  hour  I  nevermore  forgot. 

I  stood  amid  the  radiance  of  the  noon, 

Flooded  with  beauty ;  the  bright,  heavenly  curve 

Domed  the  blue  deep,  and  from  light's  centre  poured 

On  me  the  benediction  of  the  seas 

I  had  so  loved;  its  winds,  its  blowing  tides, 

Voices  mysterious,  touch  and  sight  divine, 

The  crests  of  sunset  flung  far  down  the  west, 

The  rosy  shallop  of  the  breaking  dawn 

Breasting  the  island-breakers,  dark  a-gleam, — 

Uncounted  aspects,  mingling  all  their  grace, — 

Ensphered  me;  and  the  gray  sea,  golden- tongued, 

Upgathering  invisible  mystery, 

Flashed  through  me,  wave  on  wave,  its  effluence, 


THE   ROAMER  105 

Unseen,  unknown,  unsensed,  ineffable; 

And  all  my  being  with  bright  passion  shook. 

Such  moments,  like  the  heavenly  messenger, 

Announce  a  birth  divine;  they  cannot  die; 

And  never  after  faded  that  pure  ray. 

It  crept  on  human  faces,  forms  of  youth, 

The  smile  of  woman,  hero,  saint,  and  child, 

And  lit  my  youth  from  many  a  great  design 

Of  mighty  artists,  where  the  risen  soul, 

Above  the  tomb  as  on  a  pedestal 

Seated  immortal,  waited  heaven's  ascent; 

Or  crosses,  on  Judaean  mounts  relieved, 

Led  up  the  eye;  or  golden  clouds  enthroned 

Virgin  and  martyr, — Italy  enskied 

Above  her  long-lined  hills;  but  most  it  shone, 

Where  marble  forms  immovable  of  gods 

Stayed  the  one  moment  of  eternity 

That  ever  is,  and  flashed  through  time  and  tide 

The  radiant  presence  of  a  greater  world 

Of  timeless  beauty,  omnipresent  thought, 

The  element  of  immortality, 

Wherein  the  universe  is  lightly  borne. 

Then  came  a  greater  wonder.    The  ideal 

Shone  on  me  from  the  living  forms  of  men 

More  than  from  paint,  or  clay,  or  gleaming  stone, 

Or  the  fair  shapes  that  light  the  brooding  mind. 


106  THE   ROAMER 

I  met  them  in  the  highways  of  the  world, 

Maiden  and  youth  and  child,  hero  and  saint, 

Sweetened  by  duty,  crowned  by  sacrifice, 

And  most  that  glory  rested  on  the  poor; — 

The  changeless  type  more  easily  discerned, 

Made  flesh.    So  love  had  taught  my  mortal  eyes." 

The  sun  had  sunk,  and  left  a  winter  light, 

Pure  emerald,  lucid  in  the  delicate  deep, 

Transparent,  crystalline,  save  where  the  peak 

Clothed  the  pale  North  with  an  outstretching  glow, 

And  the  far  East  was  barred  with  crimson  flakes. 

"  More  than  the  object  doth  the  eye  avail, 

If  but  the  sight  be  pure,"  that  fair  guest  spoke, 

And  more  his  gentle  smile  left  unexpressed; 

"  With  such  a  light  is  every  mortal  born, 

As  well  thou  provest  in  thy  wanderings; 

And  if  he  follow  the  all-heavenly  ray, 

He  shall  behold,  though  far,  the  Mount  Divine, 

The  Mount  of  Vision,  where  my  dwelling  is, 

The  place  of  the  Transfiguration  old. 

Lift  up  thy  eyes,  and  see!  lo,  I  am  he, 

The  angel  of  the  Intercessors  called, 

And  in  my  charge  all  things  of  beauty  are. 

Swift  must  my  going  be  out  of  thy  sight, 

Brief  my  farewell."    He  nigh  the  Roamer  drew, 

And  touched  his  flesh,  and  raised  his  eyelids  up 


THE    ROAMER  1 07 

With  hands,  whose  tender  stroke  was  burning  fire. 
The  mountain-cone  was  swathed  in  sunset  flame, 
As  with  a  mantle;  opalescent  gleamed 
The  dying  skies;  one  white  and  tremulous  star 
From  light  emerging,  pale  with  quivering  points, 
Hung  faint  upon  the  orange  edge  of  night, 
Whereon  the  angel  gazed;  lovely  in  him, 
The  form  of  beauty  full  incarnate  glowed, 
The  bloom  of  all  desire:  instant  he  passed. 
"  O,  is  the  beauty  of  the  evening  star 
The  path  of  thy  departure,  spirit  fair?  " — 
The  Roamer  spoke  with  syllables  unheard. 
Horizon-low,  the  heavenly  planet  shone, 
And  sank;  far  off  the  sweet  light  died  away. 
Night  fell,  the  visionary  peak  went  out; 
About  the  Roamer  a  great  darkness  drew; 
Lonely,  he  turned  to  his  dim  hostel,  sleep, 
And  laid  his  head  upon  the  dreamer's  stone. 


THE    ROAMER 
BOOK  IV 

"O  FAIR  young  face,"  a  voice  began  aloof 

When,  dark,  the  Roamer  woke,  "  how  few  there 

be 

That  pass  this  limit  with  such  lips  as  thine, 
An-hungered  and  athirst!  "  and  nigh  him  rose 
An  old  man's  form  against  the  doubtful  sky. 
Flowers  of  the  desert  held  he  in  his  hand, 
Slight,  grass-like  spears  that  bore  a  bloom  minute, 
Whereof  he  seemed  to  proffer  flower  and  stem. 
"  Take,  eat,"  he  said,  "  the  food  the  waste  provides." 
The  wondering  Roamer  pressed  them  to  his  lips, 
And,  scarce  the  leaf  withdrawn,  it  seemed  from 

thence 

The  very  bloom  and  odor  of  the  grape 
Moved,  flower  and  fragrance,  in  his  racing  blood, 
And  bore  his  soul  aloft  on  vital  tides. 
"  What  faery  herb,  what  bright  immortal  root 
Distils,  like  sap  within  the  virgin  bark, 
Its  rich  elixir  in  this  humble  plant? 
What  desert  realm?    What  hermitage?  "    He  gazed 

108 


THE    ROAMER  109 

With  longing  toward  those  mighty  solitudes 
Arisen,  where  far  he  swept  the  breaking  West. 
O  whence  refreshed  from  unknown  springs  divine 
The  cry,  the  dark  desire,  the  need  to  go 
Whither  the  wild  heart  will?    'T  was  such  a  morn 
As  when  in  frosty  autumns  of  the  North 
The.  honking  geese  cross  the  untraveled  vague, 
Unseen  aloft,  or  heaven-high  wedgewise  move, 
Wild  birds  in  the  void  air;  forward  he  saw 
Where  the  wide  world,  westering  with  dune  and 

butte 

Sky-bordering,  lifted  on  the  rolling  plains 
A  harsh,  scant  herbage  of  dull  silvery  leaf, 
Flooring  the  solemn  dawn.    "  The  herb  of  grace  " — 
He  heard  the  old  man  speak — "  grows  everywhere; 
But  sweetest,  on  the  desert  border  found 
And  crushed,  gives  up  its  fragrant  virtue  here." 
Then  the  awed  Roamer  swift  bethought  himself, 
Replying,  "  Such  tranquillity  is  thine, 
So  saintly  bends  toward  earth  thy  age  serene, 
Scarce    mortal    thou,    though    mortal    sounds    thy 

voice." 

"  Mortal — immortal — they  are  veiling  names 
Of  what  is  timeless,"  that  old  man  returned; 
"  The  mystic  hours,  whose  revolutions  flash 
Shadow  and  sun  upon  the  ways  of  men, 


110  THE   ROAMER 

Can  give  no  gifts  but  what  they  take  away; 

Yet  aye  abundant  pours  the  living  stream, 

And  all  creation  fleets  through  one  fair  form, 

That  in  the  moulding  mind  endures,  divine 

Reason,  that  passes  not,  nor  on  it  falls 

The  shadow  of  dark  death,  nor  any  change 

Of  nature,  and  it  grows  not  old  with  time. 

It  lights  the  mortal  chamber  of  the  soul. 

There  comes,  as  on  a  stage,  the  motley  world; 

There  shine  great  truths,  great  actions,  on  one  plane; 

And  all  that  is  fills  but  a  player's  scene, 

Where  time  is  not,  nor  place;  there,  to  the  soul 

The  passing  world,  unfolding  like  a  flower 

From  unseen  roots,  that  shuts  at  eventide, 

Is  but  a  phantom-bloom  and  beauty's  shade, 

Echoing  far  off  divine  reality: 

Such  song  the  morning-stars  together  sang, 

And  at  creation's  birth  praised  light  unseen." 

Then  in  the  Roamer  stirred  his  dreaming  youth: 

"  So  once  I  sang  with  lifted  hands  to  heaven 

The  beauty  that  the  dawn  hath  never  clasped, 

The  peace  that  falls  not  with  eve's  blessed  dew, 

The  mystery  within  the  seas  and  stars; 

All  vision  is  the  woven  veil  thereof; 

There  works  the  secret  craft  that  builds  the  world; 

There  shines  the  ray  that  puts  earth's  glory  on; 


THE   ROAMER  III 

There   wakes   the   chord   that   tunes   the   whirling 

sphere, 

Amphion's  art,  heard  in  the  rising  deep, 
And  should  it  falter,  heaven  and  earth  were  dark." 
"  Whence  hast  thou  music,  and  the  charm  of  words 
Few  speak  and  live?  "  the  old  man,  thoughtful,  said: 
"  Another  dawn  is  shining  in  thy  face." 
Then,  gladdening  in  his  heart,  the  Roamer  spoke; 
"  Love  taught  me  this,  whom  mortal  once  I  knew, 
And  felt  upon  my  cheek  his  burning  bloom. 
O  young,  prophetic  years!  how  long  I  live 
With  half  my  heart  in  the  other  world!  "    O'erhead 
Morning  was  kindled  in  the  lonely  sky 
A  lonelier  presence;  as  in  Moslem  lands, 
Limned  on  the  desert  drifts  and  silentness, 
Pilgrims  to  Mecca  or  to  Kairouan 
Seem  waifs  of  nature,  there  he  stood  enskied 
While  the  unclouded  glory,  pulsing  on, 
Beat  up  high  heaven,  and  dipped  with  golden  wing 
The  azure  element,  and  made  earth  pure 
With  the  celestial  miracle  of  dawn. 
"  Whatever  rapture  fills  that  other  world, 
Build  thou,  ere  night,  thy  earthly  mansion  fair," 
The  old  man  said,  and  drew  the  Roamer  on, 
A  little  way,  along  the  radiant  rock, 
Beyond  the  great  Divide;  its  crown  disclosed 


112  THE   ROAMER 

Southward  a  canyon  in  the  hollow  hills, 
Deep-sunken,  o'er  whose  pink  and  yellow  crags 
Rose  spires  of  tree- tops,  rooted  far  below; 
Sea-like,  with  heavenly  straits,  the  distance  shone 
Far  off,  and  melted  into  phantom  lands, 
Desert  depressions,  lost  in  filmy  air. 
"  Yon  is  the  gate,  and  narrow  is  the  way," 
The  old  man,  hastening,  spoke;  and  from  his  lips 
Dropped  but   few  words,  or  none,  as   time  were 

scant ; 

Till  at  the  cleft  arrived,  "  Descend,"  he  bade, 
"  Only  the  desert  hath  reality. 
Now  on  the  border  long  I  range  denied. 
So  heavy-laden  am  I  with  the  weight 
Of  earthly  thought;  the  wisdom  of  the  poor 
Shall  light  thee  onward  to  thy  journey's  end. 
Blessed  art  thou!"    Dumbly  he  bowed  his  head; 
As  one  abandoned,  on  the  light  he  loomed; 
And  something  in  the  old  man's  attitude 
And  gesture  made  the  Roamer  to  refrain 
His  farewell  word;  he  down  the  dark  defile 
Sank  silent  and  his  silence  courtesy  was. 

On  the  steep  slope  of  an  immense  ravine 
Profound,  dividing  upon  either  hand 
Green  chasms  of  the  valley  canyon-walled, 
He  found  himself;  a  moment  yet  he  saw 


THE   ROAMER  113 

The  aspiring  forests  island  the  great  gulf, 

Primeval  growths;  soon  in  dark  solitudes 

He  entered  'mid  impenetrable  shades, 

By  trunk  and  arch  of  nature's  majesty, 

The  haunts  of  primal  awe,  man's  earliest  dread. 

Ah,  never  had  he  felt  such  loneliness 

Assail  him,  nor  his  soul  so  isolate 

And  lost  in  nature's  vast,  as  in  the  hush 

And  shadow  of  that  many-centuried  wood! 

It  seemed  coeval  with  creation's  morn. 

Monarchs  of  time  stood  there,  like  stem  and  limb 

From  Lebanon  or  Himalaya  brought, 

Hoar  cedar,  tall  pines,  dim  sequoias  huge 

That  still  on  earth  salute  the  stars  and  winds 

As  equals,  mixing  with  the  heavenly  roof; 

So  stood  this  forest  grove  majestical, 

O'erblown  with  leafy  flora  of  the  vale, 

In  immemorial  secular  growth  obscure. 

The  abode  of  unimaginable  peace 

Life  seemed  within  the  valley,  and  the  soul 

An  alien  in  that  natural  paradise. 

Sounding  remote  as  reefs  on  unseen  seas 

He  heard  the  long-drawn  soughing  of  the  pine 

Begin,  and  die  away  down  the  dark  trail 

In  the  dense  wild ;  there,  brooding  what  should  be, 

He  rounded  pillared  rocks,  and  found  a  shelf 


114  THE   ROAMER 

Open  and  broad,  the  highway  of  the  gorge. 

So  solitary  was  the  solemn  road, 

So  dark  with  loftiness  of  tree  and  rock, 

Savage,  austere,  sublime,  he  scarcely  saw 

A  form  that  passed,  until  it  turned  and  looked 

With  unremembering  eyes  and  face  that  seemed 

The  carven  impress  of  a  thousand  years, 

So  was  it  typical  and  motionless. 

Such  brows  upon  the  silent  traveler  gaze 

From  reaches  of  Egyptian  colonnades, 

Sphinxlike,  unindividual,  but  man, 

The  immemorial  creature  of  the  earth; 

Doubtful  there  shot  a  momentary  gleam 

Of  recognition  through  him,  as  it  passed; 

And  others,  singly,  up  the  gorge  emerged 

Out  of  the  fire-scrawled  rock  and  towering  herb 

In  rare  procession, — faces  of  mankind 

That  pass  through  generations,  race-renewed; 

Life  piled  on  life  had  stamped  their  mortal  mask; 

Each  gave  him  one  long  look,  and  disappeared; 

And  once  a  name  had  leapt  unto  his  lips 

And  died  in  the  vast  silence,  as  in  tombs; 

But  none  accosted  him  out  of  that  dark 

Epitome  of  life,  till  all  were  gone; 

And,  weird  of  heart,  he  urged  his  counter-way 

Unto  the  valley's  outlet,  and  a  land 


THE    ROAMER  115 

That  seemed  an  incantation  in  the  morn, — 

So  instant  broke  the  vast  expanded  scene 

Of  a  far  country,  stretching  to  the  West, 

Into  the  infinite  of  sky  and  plain, 

With  black  oases  spotted,  drifted  gold, 

A  place  of  marvel;  long  he  stood  at  gaze, 

Before  it  silenced,  and  his  heart  was  hushed. 

Slowly  he  woke  from  that  undreamt  disclose 

Of  power,  of  vision,  and  of  mystery. 

Larger  of  soul,  and  drawing  ampler  breath, 

And  even  with  a  silent  joy  inspired, 

He  sought  the  sheer  descent,  and  winding  down 

By  knife-edge  ridges  and  dry  torrent  beds 

Debouched  below  upon  a  fair  demesne, 

A  tropic  spot;  an  aged  terebinth 

Hung,  half-reclined,  above  a  sunken  slab 

Of  marble,  and  a  rose-bush  blossomed  nigh, 

And  in  the  shade  two  pilgrim  forms  reposed. 

Eastern  their  garb,  and  dark  their  hue;  they  seemed 

Companions,  met  by  chance  after  long  time, 

Far  travel,  and  in  memories  immersed; 

He,  unobserved,  beside  them  drew,  and  sat. 

"  That  day  at  Broussa  whence  our  wanderings  were, 

When,  boys,  we  left  the  mosque's  bare,  upper  room, 

The  cradle  of  our  youth,"  one  of  them  said, 

His  face  half-hid,  "  where  life  and  prayer  were  all, — 


Il6  THE   ROAMER 

The  small,  bloom-windowed,  sweet,  ascetic  cell, — 
And  took  the  staff  of  the  world's  pilgrimage, 
Farewelled  the  stork's  tower  and  the  green-domed 

hill, 

And  by  the  poet's  grave  unclasped  our  hearts, — 
How  hast  thou  fared,  brother,  since  then?  we  sought 
The  light  divine."    The  other,  smooth  of  brow, 
High-featured,  pale,  large-eyed,  answered,  "  I  prayed 
Among  the  mulberries  at  the  road's  steep  end, 
And  with  the  staff   of  prayer   journeyed   thence 
forth 

In  this  life's  wilderness;  cities  and  schools 
I  threaded,  unappeased,  and  fled,  still  young, 
Into  the  desert  of  the  boundless  sands, 
Eve's  scarlet  deep,  and  still  night's  hollow  vault 
Star-swarmed,  where  most  the  Omnipotent  is  nigh. 
The  heavens  declare  His  glory,  infinite  power, 
The  wandering  life  His  will,  implacable  fate. 
There  the  Heaven-dweller,  sole  supreme,  became 
My  habitation,  and  His  works  my  world, — 
Symbols  of  Him  through  whom  alone  they  beam, 
Best-known  where  shepherds  watch  their  flocks  by 

night 

And  see  the  upper  deep,  with  angels  thronged, 
Hosannas  sing, — so  light  from  Him  derived 
Radiates  through  nature,  which,  His  mirror,  shines. 


THE   ROAMER  117 

Fain  would  I  that  such  unity  with  Him, 

Through  awe  and  prayer,  may  at  the  last  be  mine, 

As  glorifies  His  humblest  instruments! 

Humblest  is  best.    As  lilies  by  the  well 

Drink  of  His  loveliness,  and  fragrant  blow, 

Would  that  my  mortal  might  put  on  His  grace, 

My  raiment  of  the  dust  show  gleams  of  Him, 

My  thoughts  be  incense  burning  in  the  flame 

Of  beauty  that  His  omnipresence  is, 

My  mind  a  spark  of  His  omniscience! 

So  might  my  being — how  blest! — transmit  His  rays, 

And  as  the  raindrop  hangs  the  bow  in  heaven, 

My  finite  manifest  infinity! 

Eternity  informs  this  body  of  time, 

The  cosmic  universe,  in  star  and  worm 

The  sacred  hieroglyphic  of  His  name: 

All  sight  a  means  of  seeing  the  Unseen, 

All  sense  divine  Transfiguration 

Of  Him,  the  Incommunicable."    "  Thought 

Is  but  the  shell  of  knowledge,  as  this  world 

Is  but  the  shell  of  being,"  darkly  said, 

And  low,  his  comrade,  answering:  "  I  have  lived,, 

Though  nature  be  the  parable  of  Him, 

He  spoke  not  to  me  by  the  burning  bush 

Of  beauty,  nor  the  host  that  leads  the  morn. 

I  never  found  Him.    Even  from  youth's  first  flower 


Il8  THE    ROAMER 

Passion  of  life  I  knew,  the  quick  fierce  joys 

Of  action,  and  dull  vintages  of  pain. 

Ah,  many  a  breast  to  me  has  night  unsealed, 

Scarred  with  dark  writings  of  God's  secrecy, 

But  most  my  own:  dyed  in  the  blood  of  man 

Is  all  my  knowledge;  in  the  human  flood 

Deep  was  I  dipped,  and  took  the  mortal  stain. 

Though  sin  be  on  my  soul,  woe  in  my  heart, 

So  was  I  darkly  mixed  with  all  my  race, — 

One  flame  of  life,  one  swift  aspiring  joy, 

One  body  of  delight,  one  weight  of  pain, 

One  spirit  of  man,  One  human,  One  divine." 

"  Whence  hadst  thou  this?  "   The  Roamer,  venturing 

near, 

Made  him  a  third  in  that  close  company, 
And  drew  upon  himself  a  face  of  dream, 
So  spiritualized  was  the  dark  flesh, 
With  sorrows  ploughed,  and  intimate  with  pain. 
"  Brother,"  the  voice  replied  with  courtesy, 
"  Such  knowledge  came  not  at  the  first, — I  knew 
The  bittter  taste  of  life,  the  solitude 
Of  evil,  and  the  desert  of  myself. 
Ah,  long  I  lay  in  that  abandonment, 
Till  one,  a  stranger  youth,  beside  me  crept 
And  bared  his  bosom;  therein  I  beheld 
The  winged  soul  mired  in  its  own  sweet  clay, — 


THE   ROAMER  1 19 

Wild  heart,  wild  head,  and,  in  the  tragic  act 
Itself  revealed,  high  heaven  beyond  all  reach, — 
Body  and  soul,  the  image  of  myself, 
As  in  a  glass  reflected  and  deformed, 
Though  in  another  birth:  such  had  I  been, 
Such  was,  the  mould  and  feature  of  despair; 
And  swift  desire  sprang  flaming  from  my  breast 
To  be  his  helper  unto  beauty  lost. 
I  drew  him  to  me,  cherished  him,  and  loved. 
There  God  found  me,  even  in  the  touch  of  hands 
And  hearts,  that  doubled  the  great  universe, 
Making  us  one;  nor  one  with  him  alone 
I  had  become,  but  wheresoe'er  I  went 
And  spoke  unto  the  hearts  of  fellow-men 
Though  fallen  and  in  desolate  misery  sunk, 
There  life  in  all  made  answer,  <  T  is  thyself!  ' 
It  may  be  that  God  lives  in  star  and  flower 
And  others  find  Him  there;  but  me  He  found 
In  my  own  heart,  which  is  the  heart  of  man." 
"Allah  il  Allah!  wonderful  his  works!  " 
Intoned  the  Moslem;  but  the  Roamer  hid 
The  words  within  his  heart,  and  well  he  marked 
The  soft  light  dwelling  in  the  other's  eyes, 
The  ray  of  love,  bright  beaming,  as  he  spoke. 
"  Life  is  the  only  comment  on  the  heart 
That  speaks  within  us,  eloquent  of  love," 


120  THE   ROAMER 

The  Roamer  said;  "  God  grant  us  so  to  live, 

With  others'  lives  commingling  and  involved, 

Until  the  larger  self  takes  form  in  us 

Whereby  we  rise  to  perfect  charity, 

One  with  mankind."     "  And  dost  thou  live?  " 

Broke  the  low  whisper  hesitant  from  him 

Who  bore  life's  stigma;  "  more  than  mortal  light 

Clothes  thy  bright  limbs,  and  even  as  one  of  us 

Thou  seemest  discarnate,  though  to  eye  and  ear 

Thou  art  all  human,  as  a  mortal  dream 

Is  figured  thought."    "  Love  held  me  in  his  grace, 

And  from  my  birth  I  sleep  upon  his  breast; 

To  learn  of  him  is  life  ";  the  Roamer  said: 

"I  go  to  learn,  treading  the  pilgrim's  way 

Through  lands  I  know  not  of.    His  will  be  done!  " 

And  on  the  instant  risen,  he  turned,  and  bade 

God's  peace  be  with  them,  and  they  heard  amazed. 

By  flower  and  shrub  the  rough  way  wended  on 
Pathless,  by  rise  and  gully,  brush,  stone  and  sand, 
And  lost  itself  upon  a  stretch  rock-pronged, 
As  't  were  a  place  of  graves,  a  bandit-hold. 
The  black  stones  in  the  brilliant  sunlight  stared, 
Mysterious  and  forbidding,  as  by  each 
Some  dark-browed  danger  lay,  silent,  concealed, 
But  none  appeared;  only  the  rank  reed  sighed, 
And  melancholy  cast  a  shadow  there 


THE   ROAMER  121 

To  ruins  known,  that  crumble  in  the  sun, 

Shadowless,  noiseless,  lifeless,  left  of  man 

Unto  the  footing  of  forgotten  years 

And  years  to  be  forgotten ;  rubble  and  stone 

Made  difficult  the  way;  but  soon  o'ercrost, 

The  dismal  tract  upon  the  level  plain 

Showed  like  a  wave,  black-crested,  on  the  sea, 

Horizon-high;  now  straight  before  rose  up 

What  seemed  a  natural  stone  of  antique  rite, 

A  boulder  rude;  and,  thither  drawing  close, 

The  Roamer  heard  one  cry  who  stood  erect 

Beneath  it,  like  a  guardian  of  a  gate, 

And  like  a  leveled  spear  his  challenge  was: 

"  What  dost  thou  in  this  haunt  of  memory 

Where  I  abide,  alone  of  all  my  race, 

Exiled  from  man?  "    The  Roamer  touched  at  heart, 

Made  answer,  "  Exile  too  am  I ; 

A  stranger  from  new  lands  and  seas  far  off, 

I  seek  the  fair  companions  of  my  soul 

Whom  life  to  me  denied,  nor  could  I  know 

Their  light  and  leading,  nor  their  burden  share. 

I  pray  thee  to  receive  me  as  a  friend." 

"  A  friend!  "    The  sigh  he  drew  echoed  a  woe 

From  long-past  years  beyond  the  reach  of  time, 

And  more  the  lover  than  the  warrior  showed 

In  his  remembering  eyes  and  wistful  tones; 


122  THE   ROAMER 

"  One  such  I  knew,  and  from  my  childhood's  hour 

He  drew  me  with  him,  set  my  heart  aflame 

In  boyhood,  and  unfolded  my  souPs  flower, — 

The  passion  for  my  race  that  in  me  grew, 

And  swelled  my  breast,  and,  full  in  youth,  burst 

forth 

The  glory  of  my  country's  chivalry, 
Rose  of  her  garden,  spearhead  of  her  wars, — 

0  why  recall?    Why  mourn?    Why  chronicle 
The  tears  of  time  that  every  people  knows, 
Fulfilling  destiny  on  fatal  heights 

Of  high  achievement  to  its  last  dismay? 

1  was  the  incarnation  of  the  land; 

I  drank  its  life,  I  treasured  up  its  soul; 
I  was  made  one  with  it,  its  voice,  its  deed, 
Its  hope,  its  triumph,  its  catastrophe. 
Now  blown  about  the  desert  world  is  all 
My  empire;  and  its  breath,  a  memory, 
Dies  from  the  lips  of  time;  and  here  I  bide 
'Mid  scenes  that  are  as  ghosts  of  vanished  years ; 
For,  as  at  times  men  look  on  earth  and  sky, 
And  see  lost  recollections  of  a  world 
Once  theirs,  so  fair,  so  dear,  so  intimate 
They  shine  upon  the  eye  and  reach  the  heart, 
Thus  in  the  waste  dominion  round  me  strown 
The  immortal  shadow  of  my  own  sweet  land 


THE   ROAMER  1 23 

Smiles  from  its  ruins;  on  the  rocky  verge 

The  past  gleams  visionary;  in  the  noon  I  see 

Prone  columns  and  huge  capitals  o'erthrown, 

A  tract  of  marble  desolation  piled, 

Edged  by  the  bright  sea  where  I  tasted  death." 

Even  to  the  Reamer's  self  the  landscape  round, 

As  when  the  wind  breathes  on  a  field  of  wheat 

And  lifts  the  poppies,  laughter  of  the  spring, 

Seemed  by  the  dying  gleam  of  time  o'erswept; 

An  instant — such  illusion  is  in  words — 

He  saw  the  symbol  of  the  mighty  world 

Fading  away,  lost,  recordless,  annulled; 

Then,  waking  from  the  momentary  trance 

And  shadowy  seizure  dim,  he  knew  himself; 

Bright  o'er  him  soared  the  sweet,  eternal  sky, 

The  home  and  eyrie  of  the  bird  of  time 

Forever, — "  O  calm,  ageless  blue,"  he  cried, 

Our  house  of  life  and  temple  of  our  faith, 

What  destinies  unroll  in  thee  agelong!  " 

He  turned  unto  the  desert  prince,  inspired: 

"  Fortunate  is  he  born  who  lifts  his  land 

Up  to  the  heights  of  greatness,  his  bright  death 

Immortal,  in  its  glory  who  expires! 

He  has  advanced  the  world,  whatever  his  day, 

And  on  his  shoulders  borne  the  orb  of  fate 

Up  the  steep  slopes  of  time  unto  God's  feet. 


124  THE   ROAMER 

Nation  to  nation  calls,  race  unto  race, 

Englobing  and  dissolving,  bodied  o'er 

In  larger  units,  nearer  to  our  goal, 

The  incarnation  of  humanity. 

I  cannot  cease  from  belief  in  the  To-Come, 

The  top  and  crown  of  worship  of  the  past; 

For  I  was  bred  in  reverence  of  the  great 

Fathers  of  men,  who  gave  their  names  to  tribes, 

Cities  and  lands,  and  are  their  memory, — 

Founders  of  states,  though  state  and  land  be  lost, 

Sires  of  mankind,  and  saviours,  though  they  die." 

"  Where  are  my  soldier-mates?  "  the  chieftain  cried, 

"  Brothers-in-arms,  my  children  in  the  fight, 

My  battle-brood, — young,  golden  eagle-brood — 

That  drank  the  morning  as  the  wine-cup,  flung 

The  rose  of  youth  into  the  face  of  death, 

And  rang  the  laughter  of  the  sword  above 

The  waves  of  onset,  as  they  sank  to  night 

Down  the  dark  depths  of   the  To-Come?  "     He 

paused, — 

"The  sun  shall  come  again,  the  spring  return; 
Cities  shall  rise  and  fall,  dominions  fade; 
And  death  be  swallowed  up  in  victory. 
Time  is  the  victor,  and  he  mindeth  not 
The  sacrifice.    Both  king  and  kingdom  die." 
"  Kingdom  and  king  are  interlocked  by  fate, 


THE   ROAMER  125 

And  no  hand  breaks   that  bond   through  endless 

time/' 

Returned  the  Roamer:  "  Thou  hast  proved  it  well, 
Prompted  within  by  the  undying  spark. 
The  individual  and  the  mass  are  one. 
In  my  own  youth  I  caught  the  sacred  lore, 
In  a  far  country  that  thou  knowest  not  of; 
There  lies  my  land,  a  seat  of  growing  good, 
A  seedplace  of  the  nations,  storing  time, 
A  harvest  of  the  universal  earth, 
A  power  whereof  the  armament  is  peace, 
A  state  proceeding  from  all  wills  made  one, 
A  realm  where  all  men  reign,  a  commonwealth, 
A  stronghold  of  mankind;  there  all  men  toil, 
And  wisdom  labors  on  the  shield  of  truth, 
And  on  the  stammering  lips  of  knowledge  shapes 
New  ages  rising,  and  prophetic  hears 
The  paean  of  the  final  victory." 
As  signal  fire  to  signal  fire  is  flashed 
Across  dividing  seas,  the  young  prince  heard 
And  kindled,  and  as  light  revisits  late 
A  sunset  peak  with  the  sweet  rose  of  eve 
After  the  sun  is  gone,  and  soon  dies  off, — 
Touched  with  that  message  of  the  dawn,  he  flushed 
And  faded,  to  his  own  dark  self  withdrawn 
And  silent  mystery;  reverence  he  made 


126  THE   ROAMER 

To  the  rude  altar.    "  Peace  go  with  you,  friend," 
He  said,  r<  who  bringest  gentle  tidings  here 
Of  unknown  scriptures  in  the  book  of  time! 
Fair  be  your  journey,  sweet  your  last  repose!  " 
And,  as  if  fascinated,  saw  him  go 
O'er  the  bright  sand,  as  at  the  spirit's  call. 
Wonderful  was   the  scene   through  which  then 

moved 

The  Roamer,  compassed  by  horizons  free, 
By  high  clouds  hung,  and  swept  by  sunburst  lights 
That  traveled  the  vast  round — a  virgin  world, 
Still  shining  from  the  great  Creator's  hand, 
Fresh  from  the  infinite  that  yet  abode 
In  all  its  features;  sky  and  wind  and  sun 
The  impress  of  the  eternal  presence  bore 
Wherefrom  it  issued,  clothed  in  light  and  life, 
From  the  foundation  of  the  world  prepared 
The  soul's  wide  mansion;  awe  illimitable 
Of  power,  unsensed  but  felt,  upon  him  stole 
From  the  great  scene,  dune  rolling  beyond  dune; 
And  like  a  solitary  bark  at  sea 
Far  out  from  land,  he  seemed  unto  himself; 
And,  imaged  in  his  breast,  the  solemn  sight 
Filled  his  lone   thought,  and   fashioned   forth  his 

words. 
"What  signify,"  he  said,  "cerulean  walls, 


THE   ROAMER  127 

The    towering    clouds,    the    long-drawn    mountain- 
lines, 

The  painted  plains,  the  luxury  of  light, 
The  expense  of  power  and  beauty's  ornament, 
The  glow  and  sculpture  of  the  daedal  earth 
Along  the  roadside,  where  by  nations  crawls 
The  caravan  of  time?    O  traitor  world! 
Thou  art  the  inn  of  poverty  and  crime, 
The  warren  of  the  poor  wherein  they  breed 
Hunger  and  cold,  passion  and  woe,  and  death 
In  perpetuity.     Kingdoms  and  states 
Are  but  the  shining  surface  of  the  flood, 
Time's  phosphorescence;  deep  below  dips  down 
The  unrecorded  misery  of  the  mass, 
Creation's  underworld.    What  is  't  to  men, — 
The  glamour  of  great  ages  yet  to  be 
Wherein  they  shall  not  share?  or  glory  gone, 
A  nameless  epitaph?  "    On  the  last  rise 
The  landscape  sank  beneath  him,  desert-wild, 
White  valleys  of  the  chotts, — a  far-strown  world 
Of  endless  desolation,  chequered  tracts, 
Spotted  with  salty  crusts,  dim  palms  and  wastes, 
Interminable  dearth;  and  in  the  way 
Two,  robed  in  white  and  worn  with  travel  stains, 
Girt  with  the  knotted  cord,  scanned  the  strange 
sight; 


128  THE   ROAMER 

Them  soon  he  overtook  with  noiseless  steps. 

"  Of  such  a  land  the  holy  father  told, 

Who  bade  me  follow  him,"  the  younger  said, 

"  A  place  of  ruin  and  old  chaos  stilled, 

As  on  the  moon  an  earthly  visitant 

Might  gaze  on  planetary  death  around, — 

The  ribbed  sea  bottom  from  its  base  uptorn, 

Volcanic  holocausts  of  shattered  hills 

And  sandy  oceans  blown  by  warring  storms," 

And,  startled,  he  beheld  the  Roamer  nigh, 

And  blessed  him  coming:  "  Peace  abide  with  thee, 

Who  enterest  these  dead  lands  inhospitable!  " 

He  said,  upon  the  Roamer's  face  intent. 

"How  is  thy  countenance  fair!  "  abrupt  he  spoke, 

As  to  himself.    "  Welcome  I  seek,"  replied 

The  Roamer,  "  who  have  nought  to  give  in  turn;  " 

And  humble  stood,  as  one  who  begs  a  boon. 

"  True  poverty  is  all  our  riches  here," 

The  elder  answered:  "  love  is  all  our  wealth 

For  many  a  league  foregone,  love  all  our  alms 

Given  or  received,— God's  love."    "  Tell  me  of  love," 

Struck  by  a  sudden  radiance  divine, 

The  Roamer  said,  devout, — and,  on  bright  sands 

As  on  the  threshold  of  a  world  to  come 

Reposing,  harkened,  as  to  one  in  dreams, 

The  wisdom  of  the  desert,  golden-mouthed. 


THE   ROAMER  129 

"  Love   drew   my   youth   from   the   sweet   soil   of 

France," 

Sorrows  of  exile  toned  the  mellow  voice 
That  first  had  spoken;  "  tender  yet  my  age, 
Called  by  strange  gospels  of  the  silent  heart 
That  beats  in  all  men — so  the  Master  said — 
And  ever  hears  a  spiritual  voice 
Amid  the  worldly  strife;  that  voice  I  heard, 
Brooding  above  the  Master's  sacred  charge, 
Who,  laying  his  thin  hands  upon  my  youth, 
Thus  vowed  my  life  to  lowliest  ministries: 
1  To  have  no  name ;  to  touch  no  gold ;  to  own 
City  nor  country  where  to  lay  thy  head; 
To  wander  through  the  world,  the  friend  of  him 
Who  has  no  friend,  easing  the  daily  weight 
Of  this  so  bitter  life;  to  brother  all, 
But  bind  no  dear  companion  to  thy  side 
Save  to  divide  his  burden;  not  to  think 
Of  earthly  recompense  nor  heaven's  reward; 
To  hope  no  gain ;  to  fear  no  loss ;  but  live, 
Free  from  the  mortal  tangle  of  the  self, 
For  others  only,  humbly  so  to  serve 
Among  the  humble;  nor  make  state  nor  race 
A  barrier  to  the  soul;  but  give  thy  love 
No  bound,  no  limit;  so  the  mighty  heart 
Of  the  whole  world  shall  beat  against  thy  side, 


130  THE   ROAMER 

Great  with  the  flooding  passion  of  mankind 

To  make  one  kindred  of  all  human  bloods, 

One  living  soul.' "    He  paused,  as  if  o'erawed 

By  his  own  mounting  thoughts  and  visioned  sight, 

Conscious  anew  of  the  evangel  winged 

Of  his  great  Order:  then  impassioned  rose 

The  Faith  Triumphant,  breathing  upon  lips 

That  sang  its  martyrs:  "Orphan  though  he  be, 

He  liveth  best  who  giveth  up  his  life 

To  live  incorporate  in  other  men. 

Blessed  is  he  who  hath  forsaken  all 

To  lose  himself  within  the  larger  world 

Of  indivisible  humanity. 

A  million  hearts  shall  be  his  earthly  home, 

And  silent  bosoms  store  his  virtue  up, 

Unknown  and  unsuspected;  it  shall  grow, 

Ripen,  and  multiply  the  good  of  God, 

And  bring  the  slow  millennial  harvests  on 

To  clothe  the  world."    How  salt  the  desert  gleamed 

In  the  bright  sun  resplendent,  whereon  fell 

The  Roamer's  gaze!     The  other,  in  quick  turn, 

As  if  antiphonal  to  that  high  strain,. 

Took  up  the  Word:  "  Abandoned  and  deprived, 

He  is  most  rich  who,  vowed  to  poverty, 

Hath  nothing  to  receive  and  all  to  give; 

And  who  beholds  him  learns  the  works  of  love. 


THE    ROAMER  131 

Love  is  the  bread  that  feeds  the  multitudes; 

Love  is  the  healing  of  the  hospitals; 

Love  is  the  light  that  breaks  through  prison  doors; 

Love  knows  not  rich  nor  poor,  nor  good  nor  bad, 

But  only  the  beloved,  in  every  heart 

One  and  the  same,  the  incorruptible 

Spirit  divine,  whose  tabernacle  is  life. 

Love,  more  than  hunger,  feeds  the  soul's  desire; 

Love  more  the  spirit  than  the  body  heals; 

Love  is  a  star  unto  the  darkened  mind; 

And  they  who  truly  are  Love's  servants  leal, 

And  follow  him,  undoubting,  to  the  end, 

Beyond  the  bounds  of  human  righteousness, 

Past  Justice  and  past  Mercy,  find  at  last, 

Past  Charity,  past  Pardon,  Love  enthroned, 

Lord  of  all  hearts,  incarnate  in  man's  soul." 

Like  silence  after  music  fell  the  close 

Of  the  Word  singing  in  the  wilderness 

That  lay  so  brightly  calm,  so  weirdly  still. 

The  landscape,  glittering  like  a  serpent's  eye, 

Hypnotic  glared,  and  dumb  the  Reamer's  heart 

With  all  his  life  went  echoing,  like  a  shell 

That  holds,  within,  its  melodies  concealed. 

"  All  these  things  have  I  heard  from  my  youth  up," 

He  broke  the  spell,  "  taught  by  the  bards  divine. 

I  do  remember  my  dear  Master  said, 


132  THE   ROAMER 

'  To  him  who  knows  what  love  is,  love  is  all '; 
And  on  my  ring  I  bear  the  blessed  words, 
'  Love  is  but  one  thing  with  the  gentle  heart.' 
Lo!  on  my  hand  the  golden  circle  bound! 
Sweet  is  the  gospel  of  the  gentle  heart, 
Wherewith  I  travel."    On  the  little  ring 
Centred  their  eyes.    "  What  talisman  hast  thou, 
That  holds  thee  safe  'gainst  disarraying  death, 
Where  most  his  empire  rules?    The  living  word 
Is  yet  the  burden  of  thy  breath!  "  they  cried, 
Together  risen,  awe-struck.    "  Love  is  my  lord, 
And  in  his  charge  I  go,"  the  Roamer  said; 
"  Pray  for  my  peace!  "     "  Thy  faith  companion 

thee!  " 

He  heard  behind  him;  and  the  burning  sands 
Received  him,  the  deep  silence,  and  the  sky. 
Far  on  one  hand  he  left  the  blanched  lands 
Of  the  death  valley,  hollow  and  malign, 
That  rolled  its  lost  horizons  to  the  South. 
Westward  he  trailed  the  rock-bound  desert  route, 
Where  narrowest,  like  a  gulf,  the  great  chott  ran, 
And  crossed  it,  and  on  level  reaches  came, 
Steeped  in  the  sun,  lapped  by  the  bathing  blue, 
The  kingdom  of  the  sands;  no  life  was  there, 
But  shadowless,  majestic,  nature's  power 
Moulded  her  image  of  the  earth  and  sky, 


THE   ROAMER  133 

Where  man  was  not;  only  the  white  sand-sea 

Lifted  its  crests,  and  rolled  its  arrowy  drifts 

Frozen  in  the  act  of  motion,  and  clomb  up 

Rare  buried  palm-clumps,  islanding  the  waste. 

How  still  it  was!  the  elemental  world 

In  its  own  universe!  as  from  the  first, 

Before  man  was,  it  filled  creation's  dawn! 

The  Roamer  felt  himself  a  stranger  there 

As  in  another  world,  an  older  star, 

'Mid  heavens  bright,  unknown ;  and,  as  he  moved 

Across  that  panorama  without  end, 

Sterile  and  clear,  the  soft,  transparent  air 

Evoked  far  objects,  the  blue  glow  intense 

O'ercanopied  the  sands,  and  imprecise 

The  lines  of  all  things  wavered;  and,  behold! 

As  when  a  sailor,  cast  up  by  the  sea, 

Upon  an  alien  coast,  in  a  far  land, 

Wanders  'mid  rocks  and  hills,  and  from  some  cliff 

Sees  a  green  valley  smile,  at  half  a  league, 

He  saw,  nor  far,  a  quiet  water  set 

By  scattered  palm  trees,  like  a  silver  streak, 

And  o'er  the  placid  bank  their  tall  stems  leaned. 

How  firm  they  cut  the  insubstantial  air, 

Like  some  fair  island,  seen  by  barren  seas, 

Aloof,  indifferent  to  human  life, 

Still  as  a  vision  in  a  charmed  dream, 


134  THE   ROAMER 

Beauty  dissevered  from  reality! 
"Mirage!  "  the  Roamer  murmured  'neath  his  breath; 
And  long  it  clung  unto  his  patient  eyes, 
Remembering  other  days  and  visions  gone 
That  yet  within  his  mind  were  luminous, 
Though  never  on  the  earth  their  sweet  light  fell. 
"  Illusion!  how  dost  thou  companion  me, 
Me,  the  Truth-Seeker!  "  scarce  he  spoke  aloud. 
"Art  thou,  O  Dream,  its  only  mortal  mould? 
For  I  was  born  a  dreamer,  and  fair  things 
Wove  mystery  in  my  eyes;  beauty  o'erflowed 
With  spirit,  and  with  emanating  forms 
Peopled  my  morning  world;  oft  to  my  side, 
With  welcome  in  their  silent  eyes  divine, 
Companionable  the  young  gods  came;  and,  most, 
Love  stood  beside  me,  gazing  eagerly, 
And  took  my  hand,  and  sealed  my  lips  with  fire 
That  in  my  body  burns  immortally. 
Formless  and  plastic,  like  a  cloud  in  heaven 
That  drinks  the  sun,  earth  felt  my  dawning  soul 
Glow  in  that  morn,  and  mould  her  elements ; 
And  many  a  shape,  body  of  my  desire, 
Flushed  with  sweet  light,  and  faded;    and  Love 

smiled. 

Birth  after  birth  to  fairer  beauty  flew; 
Form  after  form  unclothed  in  nobler  grace; 


THE    ROAMER  135 

And  all  my  rapture  was  a  long  farewell, 
Flight  following  flight  of  sweet  creations  gone; 
And,  last,  Love  left  my  side  without  a  guard. 
Mirage!    Mirage!"    he    sighed;    "  look,    where    it 

pales!  " 

And,  in  an  instant,  bare  the  wide  sands  rolled; 
And  faintness  came  upon  him,  like  a  cloud, 
A  momentary  shadow;  nigh,  the  West 
Broke  into  little  hillocks,  as  he  passed, 
And  quickly  grew,  like  surges  of  the  sea, 
To  crests  and  valleys,  hollows  of  the  wind, 
Drifted  and  ridged,  as  is  the  driven  snow, 
With  fret  and  furrow;  and  he  rose  amidst 
White,  mobile  mounds,  carved  by  the  inconstant 

breeeze 

Unheeded,  sculptured  like  the  living  hills, — 
Wild  beauty:  and  his  heart  grew  prescient, 
Ere  he  beheld  him,  of  a  comrade  there, 
Who  moved  toward  him  from  the  sinking  sun. 
The  loveliness  of  youth  was  in  his  limbs, 
And  on  the  Roamer  turned  his  friendly  eyes 
Love-lit;  a  round  shield  dangled  on  his  arm; 
By  following  I  lead  was  its  device; 
His  mien  was  courtly  as  of  long-past  time. 
"  Chrestoval  was  I  christened  at  the  font," 
He  said,  "  the  page  of  Christ  and  soldier,  vowed 


136  THE   ROAMER 

To  bear  his  Cross,  to  wear  his-  sacred  sword, 

Storied  with  causes  lost  and  fallen  arms 

Of  my  companions  dead;  I  know  thee  mine, 

Who  comest  to  thy  own  in  the  great  waste." 

As  when  the  leader  of  the  hope  forlorn — 

Or  win  or  lose,  his  victory  is  secure — 

Looks  to  the  setting  sun,  on  the  last  day, 

And  smiles  to  see  his  liegemen  round  him  strown, — 

So  sweet  and  stern  the  closing  of  his  lips, 

The  haunted  eyes,  that  seemed  to  gaze  far  off 

On  things  unseen,  and  saw  beyond  all  sight 

The  heavenly  passes;  on  that  mystic  face 

The  Roamer  hung  intent, — the  mouth  that  seemed 

To  sweeten  with  the  words  before  they  came; 

"  In  the  heart  only  is  the  victory  cried," 

He  heard,  amid  the  silence  of  the  sands 

Sounding,  "  and  in  the  soul  its  sweetness  found." 

And  yet  a  second  time  the  faintness  came 

Upon  him,  and  the  momentary  dark; 

And  when  again  the  white  hills  round  him  stood 

Clear,  with  a  strange  distinctness  he  beheld 

How  delicate  the  fingers  of  the  wind, 

The  framing  of  the  sandhills  how  sublime! 

He  lay  by  Chrestoval  who  o'er  him  bent 

Between  the  sun  and  shadow;  him  he  guessed 

One  of  the  comrades  of  his  youth  divine, 


THE   ROAMER  137 

The  great  companions  leagued,  though  only  given 

One  to  another  by  the  eyes  of  faith. 

"  Comrade,"  he  murmured,  "  is  it  thou,  indeed? 

Yet  in  the  very  flower  of  thy  sweet  age, 

Who  bringest  the  light  of  unknown  loveliness?  " 

*  But  not  to  thee  unknown,  or  any  man 

Who  seeks  the  beam  of  beauty  in  the  soul," 

Came  the  quick  answer:  "  beauty  there  shines  most 

And  charms  men's  bosoms ;  and,  implanting  thus 

The  seeds  of  awful  reverence  and  desire, 

Frees  the  soul's  nature;  it  hath  precious  friends; 

There  virtue  comes,  and  mirrors  in  her  shield 

Sweet  images  of  virgin  purity 

In  the  heavenly  mind;  there  godlike  patience  bends 

The  spirit  of  man  to  its  unending  task, 

And  courage  feedeth  it  with  deathless  fire; 

And  hope,  the  common  breath  of  all  men's  days, 

Lifts  over  it  the  universal  sky; 

Last,  honor,  the  best  earthly  friend  that  Love 

Warms  in  his  breast,  hath  in  the  soul  itself 

A  sacred  chapel,  pure,  inviolable, 

Where  the  young  spirit  watches  till  his  doom 

Comes  on  him,  and  he  passes  to  the  field, 

Where  only  Love,  our  lord,  is  sovereign; 

He  takes  the  fair  soul  into  his  embrace, 

And  speeds  him  to  the  combat  glorious, 


138  THE   ROAMER 

Whose  prize  is  noble  death."    "  Love  long  I  knew," 

The  Roamer  said — what  tears  were  in  his  voice! — 

"  Since  first  my  tender  years  felt  the  embrace 

Of  his  enlacing  arms,  warm  round  me  thrown, 

And  in  his  face  saw  beautiful  the  soul. 

Now  my  sad  thoughts  adore  him,  long  unseen, 

Who  in  my  heart  lodges  his  deity. 

Immortal  Love!  he  taught  my  joyful  youth 

The  yearning  of  the  spirit  infinite 

For  the  long  kiss  of  life,  whate'er  its  pain; 

And,  gladdening  in  his  face  invisible, 

I  do  his  will,  and  on  his  errands  go. 

Night  comes;  and  I  am  fain  of  voice  and  hand, 

The  smile,  the  word,  the  look,  the  sight  of  him, 

My  morning  star."    The  darkening  shadows  fell 

About  them  in  the  lone  and  silent  hills 

By  sunset  fired.    "  Love,"  answered  the  fair  youth, 

"  The  more  he  lives,  the  more  lays  off  life's  weeds. 

And  in  another  world  he  is  divine. 

But  here  he  wanders  in  his  childhood  fond 

A  beggar,  and  he  clothes  himself  with  gifts, 

The  fairest  in  the  world;  and  flowers,  whereof 

He  brought  within  his  breast  the  heavenly  seed, 

Here  germinate;  and  beautiful  he  shows 

In  every  outward  part;  but  lovelier  far 

He  is,  when  he  puts  on  his  manly  age, 


THE    ROAMER  139 

And  inward  graces  in  his  fair  face  beam. 

All  beauty  burns  in  his  sweet  passioning, 

And  echoes  to  the  spirit  of  desire 

That  there  stands  tiptoe;  by  his  minstrelsy 

He  makes  the  world  one  song;  but  soon  he  hears 

A  discord  growing  on  the  lyre;  he  sees 

A  phantom  in  the  sunshine,  in  the  spring 

The  rose  unblown  within  the  cankered  bud; 

The  dying  bird  drops  songless  at  his  feet; 

And  all  things  lack  fulfillment;  all  too  soon 

The  heavens  cloud  up,  strange  shadows  fill  the  scene, 

And  the  soul  darkens  in  its  mortal  cell, 

And  beats  its  prison;  then,  all  joyance  gone, 

Love  only  hears  the  clanking  of  life's  chain, 

Revolts,  despairs,  frenzies  and  wild  appeals, 

The  tragedy  of  man.    How  is  Love  changed, 

So  flames  in  him  the  passion  beautiful ! 

He  hath  become  the  brother  of  the  poor, 

The  twin  of  bitter  want,  the  mate  of  pain; 

Dearer  the  victim  is,  the  more  he  falls; 

Then,  far  beyond  the  good  and  evil  gone, 

Love  hath  transcended  the  vain  shows  of  life; 

And  all  his  wisdom  is  the  spirit  elate, 

Selfless,  devoted,  given  to  its  own, 

As  if  he  stood  by  heaven's  open  gates 

And  showed  the  shining  pathway  up  to  light; 


140  THE   ROAMER 

And  such  communion  hath  he  in  that  hour 

With  human  hearts  wherein  he  entereth, 

That  if  into  thy  bosom  he  shall  creep, 

So  strange  a  joy  shall  pass  into  thy  flesh, 

As  if  himself  were  seated  in  thy  breast. 

Then  shalt  thou  shake  with  the  first  throb  of  love 

That  knows  what  love  is ;  love  is  sacrifice 

Of  all  that  love  holds  dear  unto  itself, 

Even  to  the  extinction  of  its  hopes,  its  life, 

So  that  its  object  live,  complete  and  fair, 

Its  nature  out  to  its  own  loveliness 

Of  act  and  being."    "  Thou  hast  told  my  tale, 

As  if  myself  had  emptied  all  my  heart," 

The  Roamer  said;  and  over  them  swift  night 

Came  in  the  striding  shadow  of  eclipse 

Upon  the  desert  sands.    "  The  light?  the  light?  " 

The   Roamer   said;    "the   light   divine?"     "The 

light?  " 

Came  the  grave  answer,  "  from  thyself  it  flows;  " 
And,  in  the  dark,  a  soft,  dull  radiance, 
Such  as  in  Italy  the  glow-worm  sheds 
On  the  green  leaf,  or  the  dim  fireflies  flash, 
By  thousands  glimmering  in  the  darkened  fields, 
Stole  gleaming  o'er  his  form,  his  feet,  his  hands; 
With  tremors  coursed,  he  on  his  left  arm  propped 
Rose  kneeling,  and  within  he  was  aware 


THE   ROAMER  14! 

Of  a  great  passion,  mounting  like  a  sea, 

And  breaking;  and  the  mystery  flooded  him 

Of  a  communion  unimaginable, 

That,  interpenetrating  flesh  and  bone, 

Vibrated  in  the  motion  of  his  blood 

And  shook  him,  darkening  wave  on  darkening  wave 

Of  deep  emotion  pure;  ineffable 

The  seizure;  and  the  ghostly  hills  of  night 

Whitened  around  him;  high  in  heaven  came 

A  rush  of  stars  in  the  wide  universe; 

And  Chrestoval  stood  o'er  him;  his  last  look 

Clung  to  that  silent  face,  immovable, 

Strange,  yet  familiar,  beautiful,  supreme. 

Then,  upon  running  waves  of  darkness  borne, 

Sank  his  dear  head,  and  from  his  mortal  sight, 

With  all  that  he  inherited  of  earth, 

It  faded;  as  one  day  this  world  shall  melt 

And  vanish  in  the  passing  of  the  soul. 


IDEAL   PASSION 


IDEAL  PASSION 


MY  lady  ne'er  hath  given  herself  to  me 

In  mortal  ways,  nor  on  my  eyes  to  hold 

Her  image;  in  a  flying  marble  fold 
Of  Hellas  once  I  saw  eternity 
Flutter  about  her  form;  all  nature  she 

Inspirits,  but  round  her  being  there  is  rolled 

The  inextinguishable  beauty  old 
Of  the  far-shining  mountains  and  the  sea. 

Now  all  my  manhood  doth  enrich  her  shrine, 

Where  first  the  young  boy  stored  all  hope,  all  fear. 

Fortune  and  fame  and  love  be  never  mine, 

Since,  seeking  those,  to  her  I  were  less  dear! 

Albeit  she  hides  herself  in  the  divine, 

Always  and  everywhere  I  feel  her  near. 


146  IDEAL   PASSION 


II 


SHE  is  not  cold,  as  mortal  maidens  are; 
She  is  as  vital  as  the  universe, 
Like  those  great  powers  antiquity  did  nurse 

Upon  the  breast  of  being,  names  that  star 

The  dusky  dawn  of  passion,  when  the  war 
Of  the  created  rose  above  the  curse, 
And  throned  for  aye  the  better  o'er  the  worse,- 

Astarte's,  Aphrodite's  avatar, — 

The  procreant  beauty  of  love  marvellous, 

Sister  of  Ceres  and  of  Semele, 
The  mighty  mothers;  I  have  seen  her  thus, 

Drawing  Sicilian  children  to  her  knee, 
While  cypress  and  rose-laurel  ominous 

Burned  in  the  noon  beside  the  barren  sea. 


IDEAL   PASSION  147 


III 


SHE  is  not  holy  like  the  Virgin  One, 
The  miracle  of  nature,  simple,  mild, 
The  mother  sanctified  above  the  child, 

With  rapt  gaze  turned  forever  on  her  Son, 

In  whom  the  world's  salvation  was  begun; 
Deep  in  His  eyes  creation  undefiled 
Rose  like  a  star;  whereat  my  lady  smiled, 

Before  whom  heavenly  love  doth  herald  run. 

Her  children  are  world  prophecies  to  be 
Far  off  ensouled  in  life  mysterious; 

Tremendous  births,  beyond  the  ecstasy 
Of  nature's  ordination  over  us; 

Immanent  in  the  spiritual  sea 

Their  beauty,  and  their  godhead  glorious. 


148  IDEAL   PASSION 


IV 


SHE  doth  not  leave  me  comfortless,  nor  e'er 

Of  other  lovers  envious  do  I  go, 

Who  knew  their  ladies  in  the  life  below 
And  after  mourned  them,  whence  the  frequent  stir 
Of  what  hath  been  doth  sadly  minister 

Images  of  what  they  no  more  shall  know; 

She,  unremembered,  is  more  heavenly  so; 
And  more  imperishably  unto  her 

My  thoughts  mount  up,  free  from  all  earthly  sense, 
Regrets,  and  grief-changed  joys,  if  any  joy, 

Vain  recollections  of  love's  impotence, 

And  blots  that  our  vexed  life  below  annoy; 

My  thoughts  still  meet  her  in  pure  innocence, 
And  manhood  but  repeats  the  virgin  boy. 


IDEAL   PASSION  149 


I  BEAR  the  lyre,  and  marry  voice  and  song 
Upon  the  hills,  the  valley,  and  the  plain, 
And  in  Apollo's  bosom  have  I  lain; 

Wherefore  I,  too,  unto  that  band  belong, 

Whose  momentary  music  echoes  long, 

And  like  a  brook  doth  to  its  stones  complain; 
I  am  acquainted  with  a  lover 's  pain, 

And  circumstance,  and  injury,  and  wrong. 

Lo,  the  felicity  I  witness  of! 

Dante  and  Petrarch  all  unenvied  go 
From  star  to  star,  upward,  all  heavens  above, 

The  grave  forgot,  forgot  the  eternal  woe; 
though  glorified,  their  love  was  human  love, 

One  unto  one:  a  greater  love  I  know. 


150  IDEAL    PASSION 


VI 


How  many  human  loves  swarm  to  my  arms, 
Although  I  am  unworthy!  yet,  in  truth, 
I  was  a  lover  from  my  earliest  youth, 

And  love,  even  the  unworthiest,  hath  dear  charms; 

And  oft  I  feel  within  me  vague  alarms, 

Thick-thronging  fears,  and  inward-turning  ruth. 
Lest  my  affections  be  not  things  of  sooth, 

But  phantom- fancies  that  oft  end  in  harms. 

Yet,  though  I  seem  unto  the  outward  sense 

The  veriest  chameleon  of  love, 
That  takes  its  colors  from  its  ambience, 

And  on  the  sweet  herb  that  it  pastures  of, 
Transformed  unto  its  nature,  glows  intense, 

These  lower  loves  mirror  the  love  above. 


IDEAL  PASSION  151 


VII 


ALTHOUGH  I  transmigrate  from  friend  to  friend, 
Yet  do  I  own  an  undivided  soul; 
From  form  to  form  created  things  must  roll, 

And  of  their  transformation  is  no  end; 

But  in  my  substance  do  I  never  bend; 
Still  unity  my  being  doth  control, 
And  still  I  give  myself  entire  and  whole 

In  all  my  loves,  and  with  my  object  blend. 

I  cannot  understand  this  mystery 

That  so  my  changeless  soul  doth  multiply; 
As  many  waves  as  rise  upon  the  sea, 

So  many  motions  in  me  shoreward  fly, 
Wherever  in  this  world's  immensity 

I  find  a  heart  to  break  on,  and  to  die. 


152  IDEAL   PASSION 

VIII 

ALL  earthly  loves  to  me  are  of  the  earth; 

But  not  for  that  are  they  to  me  less  sweet, 
Although  I  hold  within  my  soul  conceit 

Of  higher  things  that  have  a  heavenly  worth. 

In  my  mortality  I  take  my  mirth, 

And  crown  my  head  with  roses,  with  swift  feet 
Run  in  the  race-course,  and  in  song  compete 

With  others,  and  have  joys  of  home  and  hearth. 

For  if  in  exile  I  should  disappear, 

And  my  true  friends  I  never  more  might  see, 
Never  to  love,  never  to  hold  them  dear, 

Save  in  thought  only,  happier  would  they  be 
Of  my  light  joys,  though  poorer,  there  to  hear; 

Even  so  my  lady  hath  no  jealousy. 


IDEAL   PASSION  153 


IX 


AND  though  my  soul  mix  with  the  fatal  ways 
Of  nature  passioning  unto  her  end, 
And  of  her  element  I  make  my  friend, 

Till  loftier  heavens  shall  amend  my  days, 

My  lady  mindeth  not:  so  my  own  gaze 
Lower  than  man's  creation  doth  descend 
The  round  of  being,  where  myriads  aye  ascend 

Through  nature  to  the  super-solar  blaze. 

And  if  she  see  the  lily  overblown 

And  all  its  pure  gold  scattered  to  the  wind, 
And  many  a  lover  in  his  wars  overthrown, 

She  strives  not  nature's  being  to  unbind; 
Eternally  to  her  still  climb  her  own: 

Spirit  through  nature  is  but  more  refined. 


154  IDEAL    PASSION 


I  TRULY  wonder  what  they  mean  by  sin, 
The  blest,  who  in  the  tabernacle  pray; 
I  have  not  found  it  on  my  spiritual  way, 

The  souPs  contagion,  the  black  spot  within, 

Unto  annihilating  death  akin, 

That  mines  with  preternatural  decay, 

And  eats  the  substance  of  the  soul  away, — 

The  soul,  in  which  true  being  doth  begin. 

Although  I  bear  all  sorrows  of  the  globe 

Through  love  and  pity,  and  them  feel  and  see, 

And  all  things  search,  and  in  myself  most  probe, 
I  find  it  not  in  others  nor  in  me; 

With  such  pure  elements  did  nature  robe 

My  substance,  and  my  senses  cleanse  and  free. 


IDEAL   PASSION  155 


XI 


YET  often  have  I  wandered  from  the  good, 

Grieved  my  own  heart,  and  marred  the  beautiful 
In  action,  and  transgressed  love's  golden  rule, 

And  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  battle  stood; 

Nor  seldom  have  I,  even  as  fancy  would, 

Of  others'  lives  and  fortunes  made  my  tool, 
And  with  my  reputation  played  the  fool, 

And  drunk,  and  diced,  and  shown  my  hardihood. 

Ah,  then  my  braggart  youth  was  outward-bound, 

And  the  fair  morn  a  chime  of  winds  and  waves; 

Full  swelled  my  canvas;  the  unknown,  unfound, — 
The  inexperienced  world  my  spirit  craves, 

Called  me  forever,  like  a  trumpet's  sound, 

And  far  adventurers  in  their  ocean-graves. 


156  IDEAL   PASSION 


XII 


AY,  from  the  first  my  soul  was  outward-bound, 
And  in  my  eyes  was  set  their  sailor-gaze 
Haunting  the  distance;  all  my  nursing  Mays 

Broke  into  blossom  to  the  breakers'  sound; 

Scarce-budded,  from  the  sweet  paternal  ground 

Was  I  drawn  forth  to  wandering  nights  and  days, 
Early  despairs,  swift  ripenings,  quick  decays, 

And  all  that  in  youth's  chrysalis  is  found. 

And,  yet  a  boy,  I  sailed  the  seas  of  thought, 
And  o'er  the  vague  of  passion  darkly  went, 

Adventuring  all  things  for  the  thing  I  sought, 
The  true,  the  fair,  the  dear,  the  excellent; 

And,  trying  all  things,  home  I  nothing  brought, 
Till  love  unto  my  side  grew  eloquent. 


IDEAL  PASSION  157 

XIII 

LOVE  bathed  my  soul  in  the  electric  flame 
That  doth  with  him  most  intimacy  hold; 
Love  wrapped  around  me,  fiery  fold  on  fold, 

The  poets'  mantles  of  immortal  fame; 

Love  poesied  in  my  bosom,  and  went  and  came, 
And  of  ideal  beauty  most  he  told, 
Whereby  eternal  power  cast  in  one  mould 

Our  being  and  nature's  universal  frame. 

Love  opened  to  me  the  deep  infinite, 

Sphere  beyond  sphere,  seas  after  rolling  seas; 

Where  swam  the  world,  my  soul  companioned  it, 
And  in  its  comprehension  was  my  peace; 

On  the  eternal  vague  did,  brooding,  sit, 

And  from  creation  knew  not  how  to  cease. 


158  IDEAL   PASSION 


XIV 

UPON  the  everlasting  element 

My  soul  advanced  its  intellectual  ray, 
And  far  before  that  spiritual  day 

The  world-wide  majesty  of  nature  bent, 

Rejoicing  in  the  beam  that  o'er  it  went 

And  summoned  forth  its  being  from  the  gray, 
Infinite  deep,  showering  new  dawns  as  spray, — 

Its  sphere  my  mind,  my  mind  its  continent. 

But  the  delighted  soul  that  there  surveyed 
Its  shoreless  being  and  rich  sovereignty, 

Whereto  all  things  that  are,  are  subject  made, 
Drew  back  alarmed  before  that  silent  sea: 

Of  my  own  solitude  was  I  afraid, 
And  the  infinitude  of  fate  to  be. 


IDEAL   PASSION  159 


XV 


FULL  gently  then  Love  laid  me  on  his  breast, 

And  kissed  me,  cheek  and  hands  and  lips  and  brow, 
So  sweetly  that  I  do  remember  nov7 

The  wonder  of  it,  and  the  unexpressed, 

Infinite  honor  wherewith  his  eyes  caressed 

Youth  in  my  soul,  then  ripening  to  the  vow 
That  binds  us;  and  he  said  to  me:  "  Sleep,  thou; 

One  comes  who  brings  to  thee  eternal  rest." 

I  know  not  how  in  that  dread  interval 

My  lady  did  herself  to  me  make  known, 

So  deep  a  slumber  did  upon  me  fall; 

I  woke  to  know  her  being  in  my  own, 

The  nameless  mystery  whereon  I  call 

When  every  hope  hath  from  my  bosom  flown. 


160  IDEAL    PASSION 


XVI 

SHE  is  not  a  pale  visionary  thing; 

She  cometh  not  to  me  in  dream  or  trance, 
Nor  ever  with  phantasmal  feature  haunts 

The  passages  where  thought  goes  wandering 

Its  shadow- world;  night's  sky-embracing  wing, 
That  in  the  sleepy  vault  all  things  enchants, 
Captures  not  there  her  form  and  countenance; 

Fancies  of  her  to  me  no  fevers  bring. 

But  when  my  conscious  spirit  doth  purest  ride 
In  its  full  being  and  sentiency  of  life, 

When  reason  standeth  at  her  height  of  pride, 
And  my  quick  mind,  with  germination  rife, 

Creates,  then  most  in  love  do  I  abide, 

And  nought  but  her  seems  real  in  that  love-strife. 


IDEAL  PASSION  l6l 


XVII 

I  UNDERSTAND  the  roseate  mystery 

Of  maiden-bridals  in  the  Bridegroom's  arms, 
That  on  celestial  sighs  spread  forth  their  charms, 

And  in  devotion  yield  virginity; 

The  amorous  nun,  richer  in  chastity, 

The  more  love  round  her  with  his  motions  swarms, 
Dissolves,  as  if  the  rose  her  bosom  warms 

Only  the  spirit  of  the  rose  should  be. 

She  gives  herself  unto  her  spiritual  lord 
In  ecstasy  that  doth  all  flesh  consume; 

Her  soul,  incorporate  in  the  Heavenly  Word, 
Already  leaves  her  body  in  the  tomb; 

So  sweetly,  holily,  have  I  been  stirred, 

Not  uncompanioned  in  the  vacant  room. 


1 62  IDEAL   PASSION 


XVIII 

AND  they  who  tell  me  of  the  nightingale 

That  sings  unto  the  rose,  tell  nothing  new. 

Bloom,  happy  roses,  spread  out  to.  the  view 
Your  bosoms  to  the  never-ending  tale! 
Encrimson  all  the  gardens,  through  the  vale 

Scatter  your  fragrance  on  the  melting  blue! 

Sing,  happy  nightingales,  forever  true! 
Warble  your  love  ere  yet  the  thick  notes  fail! 

Pour,  Persian  boy!  and  with  wine  fill  the  cup, 
And  still  the  cup  refill  ere  the  guest  goes! 

Time,  that  fleets  fast,  soon  drinks  the  last  draught  up, 
The  wine,  the  page,  the  nightingale,  the  rose! 

Last  in  the  Sun's  inn  shall  the  poet  sup, 

Who,  sole,  the  vine's  mysterious  gladness  knows! 


IDEAL   PASSION  163 


XIX 

O  SACRED  LOVE,  and  thou,  O  Love  Profane, 
Great  branches  issuing  from  the  viny  stock 
Fast-rooted  in  earth's  old  primeval  rock, 

Single  your  nature  is,  though  seeming  twain. 

The  must  of  life  is  all  one  crimson  stain 
Of  vintage;  there  all  generations  flock; 
The  rosy  trampling  feet  let  no  saint  mock, 

The  cup  divine  no  reveller  disdain! 

True  love  repeals  all  codes  that  have  denned 
Higher  and  lower  in  its  ministry; 

True  love  hath  no  diversity  of  kind, 
And  undivided  must  its  nature  be; 

Earthly  or  heavenly,  my  soul  divined, 
Only  through  passion  cometh  purity. 


164  IDEAL   PASSION 


XX 


OH,  could  we  know  with  disencumbered  eyes 

The  spirit's  consubstantiality 

That  only  maketh  men  truly  to  be 
Mankind,  and  to  the  angels  them  allies, 
Seeing  how  love  their  being  magnifies 

And  of  those  pure  affections  makes  them  free, 

Whose  rosy  region  is  eternity, — 
What  heavenly  argosies  would  crowd  our  skies! 

We  should  encounter,  then,  on  every  gale 

Mighty  emotions  that  our  breasts  now  pen; 

Ethereal  fleets  forever  setting  sail, 

Visions  of  youth,  we  should  behold  again; 

And  shining  on  the  world's  horizon  hail 
The  congregation  of  the  hopes  of  men. 


IDEAL   PASSION  165 


XXI 

WELL  from  the  first  I  knew  how  long  deferred 
My  rapture,  unaccomplished  here  below; 
Yet  must  I  upon  all  the  winds  that  blow 

Speak  to  all  creatures  my  adoring  word, 

So  burning  in  my  bosom's  depth  was  stirred 
The  power  of  loving;  loving  must  I  go, 
Though  crowning  of  desire  I  shall  not  know, 

A  soul  enamored,  of  the  people  heard. 

All  of  my  lady  is  this  spreading  fire, 

And  mystical  the  quality  thereof, 
That,  parted  farthest,  unto  her  goes  nigher, 

And  seeming  most  to  stoop,  most  springs  above, 
And  borne  in  heaven,  unquenchable  desire, 

Lights  upon  earth  a  thousand  flames  of  love. 


I  66  IDEAL    PASSION 


XXII 

"FEAR  not  to  be  alone,"  my  lady  said, 

"  Nor  care  thy  heart  to  centre  and  confine 
On  any  mortal  thing;  but  be  it  thine 

Alike  on  good  and  evil  still  to  shed, 

Sunlike,  thy  nature;  so  the  fountain-head 
Of  all  that  is,  doth  unto  each  assign 
Some  portion  of  the  element  divine 

That  liveth,  and  abroad  its  glory  spread. 

"  Love  that  toward  thee  its  answering  motion  takes, 
A  thousand-fold  shall  thy  life-current  heap, 

Whereof  already  prescience  in  thee  wakes; 

A  river  of  the  world,  that  flood  shall  sweep 

With  many  voices  on;  full-banked,  it  makes 
Out,  far  out,  to  the  unimagined  deep." 


IDEAL   PASSION  167 


XXIII 

"LovE  purifies  his  acts/'  my  lady  said, 

"  As  first  Apollo  in  his  Castaly 

His  votaries  dipped,  and  in  thy  turn  dipped  thee, 
And  healed  thee  of  thy  wounds  of  hardihead, 
Whom  great  desires  into  great  perils  led 

And  made  thee  bonds  even  of  thy  liberty; 

True  service  of  the  god,  whate'er  it  be, 
Doth  in  the  action  heavenly  pardon  shed. 

"  Only  great  sorrows  can  him  greatly  bless 

Who  shall  from  great  ideals  his  nature  draw; 

Who  doth  no  other  lord  than  love  confess, 
And  aye  shall  own  not  any  other  law, 

Great  raptures  shall  be  his,  and  great  distress, 
And  innocence  whereof  the  world  hath  awe." 


1 68  IDEAL   PASSION 


XXIV 

WHO  hath  not  kissed  the  rose's  tender  leaf, 
And  sighed  to  think  how  easy  't  is  to  show 
To  silent  things  of  beauty  the  heart's  woe, 

And  soothe  with  loveliness  the  spirit's  grief? 

How  many  an  Attic  stele's  fair  bas-relief, 
That  only  now  in  memory  I  know, 
Has  helped  me  to  renounce  and  to  forego! 

Of  beauty's  favors  to  me  this  is  chief. 

When  nighest  to  perfection  I  have  trod, 

In  art's  still  dream  or  where  earth's  roses  burn, 

But  most  where  human  souls  at  Hermes'  rod 

Turn  marble-pure,  life's  deepest  truth  I  learn,— 

From  the  child's  kiss,  the  grave's  late-turned  sod, — 
Love  is  most  sweet  that  looks  for  no  return. 


IDEAL    PASSION  169 


XXV 

I  NEVER  muse  upon  my  lady's  grace, 

Nor  dream  upon  her  bounty,  what  may  be 
Largess  or  guerdon  at  the  last  to  me, 

Who  serve  far  off  and  in  a  lowly  place. 

I  was  not  fashioned  of  the  suitor-race 

Who  give  their  labor  and  their  hearts  for  fee; 
No  recompense  of  my  fidelity 

I  meditate, — not  even  to  see  her  face. 

Only  always  invisible  tenderness, 

Hanging  about  me  like  a  spiritual  cloud, 

Holds  me  obscure,  and  undivulged  doth  bless 

My  soul,  and  in  this  world  doth  strangely  shroud; 

Whereof  the  meaning  I  but  faintly  guess, 

Save  that  it  keeps  me  private  in  life's  crowd. 


17°  IDEAL    PASSION 


XXVI 

IN  what  a  glorious  substance  did  they  dream 
Who  first  embodied  immortality, 
And  in  warm  marble  gave  this  world  to  see 

The  earthly  art  that  lifts  heaven-high  its  beam! 

Of  things  that  only  to  the  spirit  seem 

They  wrought  the  eternal  stuff  of  memory, 
And  the  invisible  divinity 

That  they  so  loved,  did  in  their  temples  gleam. 

I  have  no  art  to  deify  the  stone, 

Nor  genius,  later  born,  to  limn  or  paint; 

No  instrumental  music  do  I  own, 

Of  choiring  angel  or  ecstatic  saint; 

Best  by  its  frailties  here  is  true  love  known, 
That  in  the  heavenly  presence  waxes  faint. 


IDEAL   PASSION  17 1 


XXVII 

AND  they,  the  lonians,  whose  first-born  minds 

Ethereal  bore  the  intellectual  ray 

Of  knowledge  through  this  realm  of  night  and  day, 
Where  the  apparent  the  true  motion  blinds, 
And  change  forever  into  new  change  winds 

And  melts  in  the  great  world's  creative  play, — 

What  power  was  theirs  nature  to  disarray, 
What  sight  that  in  the  seen  the  unseen  finds! 

Creation  hath  a  double  garniture, 

Twice  woven  of  invisibility; 
Beauty  and  truth  shall  one  another  lure, 

And  each  to  other  aye  resolved  be; 
So  forms  divine  shall  this  sad  light  endure, 

And  thought  transcend  the  sphere  perpetually. 


172  IDEAL   PASSION 


XXVIII 

"AN  evil  thing  is  honor,"  once  of  old 

The  saddest  of  Italian  shepherds  sang, 
And  on  his  mouth  the  immortal  lyric  sprang 

That  through  all  ages  pours  the  age  of  gold: 

"  Not  that  the  earth  untilled  her  harvests  rolled, 
The  rose  no  thorn,  the  serpent  had  no  fang, 
The  sea  no  furrow,  nowhere  ever  rang 

The  battle,  but  that  love  was  uncontrolled." 

The  reminiscence  of  all  lost  desire 

That  love-defrauded  hearts  dream  on  for  aye, 
Hangs  in  the  words,  and  rises  from  the  lyre, 

Whose  ecstasy  fails  not  unto  this  day. 
O  Song  of  Gold!  O  all-consuming  fire! 

Victorious  flame!  0  lover-hearted  lay! 


IDEAL   PASSION  173 

XXIX 

I  KNOW  not  what  in  other  men  may  sleep 

Of  lower  forms,  which  nature  knew  to  shape 
To  higher,  and  from  her  primal  slime  escape 

To  sea,  and  land,  and  heaven's  aerial  deep; 

Nor  with  what  stirrings  their  thick  blood  may  leap 
Of  ante-natal  slaughter,  brutish  rape; 
I  own  no  kinship  with  the  obscene  ape; 

No  beast  within  my  flesh  his  lair  doth  keep. 

The  memory  of  the  rose-tree  runs  not  back 

Through  the  dim  transmutations  of  the  rose; 

Sphere  over  sphere,  above  the  solar  track, 
The  round  of  heaven  greatens  as  it  goes; 

So  am  I  changed;  though  the  last  change  I  lack, 
When  over  love  itself  oblivion  flows. 


174  IDEAL    PASSION 

xxx 

OH,  how  with  brightness  hath  Love  filled  my  way, 
And  with  his  glory  hath  beset  my  road! 
It  seemeth  that  to  him  alone  I  owed 

Dawn,  and  the  sweet  salvation  of  the  day. 

Enlightenment  upon  my  soul  held  sway, 
And  all  my  faculties  of  man  o'erflowed 
With  inward  light,  that,  unobserved,  showed 

The  path,  more  brilliant  than  noon's  burning  ray. 

I  did  not  know  it  then, — that  gift  divine, 

The  beam  wherein  my  spirit  walked  secure; 

I  thought  the  clarity  of  nature  mine, 

Which  only  in  him  shines,  and  doth  endure; 

The  track  of  light  behind  me  crystalline 

With  truth  eternal,  he  made  bright  and  pure. 


IDEAL   PASSION  175 

XXXI 

FROM  what  a  far  antiquity,  my  soul, 

Thou  drawest  thy  urn  of  light!  what  other  one 
Of  royal  seed — yea !  children  of  the  sun — 

Doth  so  divinely  feel  his  lineage  roll 

From  the  full  height  of  man?  the  immortal  scroll 
Of  thy  engendering  doth  from  Plato  run, 
Colonnos  singing,  Simois,  Marathon! 

Into  thy  birth  such  secret  glory  stole. 

The  kings  of  thought  and  lords  of  chivalry 
Knighted  me  in  great  ages  long  ago; 

From  David's  throne  and  lowly  Galilee, 

And  Siloa's  brook,  my  noble  titles  flow; 

Under  thy  banners,  Love,  devout  and  free, 
Storing  all  time,  thy  child,  I  come  and  go. 


176  IDEAL    PASSION 


XXXII 

MUCH  in  Bithynia  I  pondered  on 

The  last  god-birth  of  dark  antiquity, 
Antinoos,  whose  golden  mystery 

The  sunset  was  of  old  religion. 

There  in  the  passing  of  a  world  he  shone, 
And  left,  unmindful  of  the  world  to  be, 
This  marble  youth  to  be  his  memory, 

Beautiful,  lost  in  thought,  when  all  was  gone. 

Olympus  had  exhaled  into  a  dream, 

And  nought  was  left  to  man  save  his  own  heart. 
How  could  he  of  himself  more  nobly  deem 

Than  to  transmute  his  being  into  art? 
And  how  could  human  beauty  brighter  beam 

Than  in  its  perfect  flower  to  depart? 


IDEAL  PASSION  177 

XXXIII 

WHY,  Love,  beneath  the  fields  of  asphodel 

Where  youth  lies  buried,  goest  thou  wandering, 
And  like  a  rainbow  droops  thy  irised  wing 

Above  the  dead  on  whom  sweet  passion  fell? 

There  thy  eternal  incarnations  dwell; 

There  bends  Narcissus  o'er  the  beauteous  spring; 
There  to  the  lovely  soil  doth  Hyacinth  cling. 

Ay  me!  when  young,  I  breathed  the  ^Egean  spell. 

Once  voyaged  I — Europe,  Asia  on  each  hand — 
To  the  inaccessible,  dim,  holy  main; 

Beautiful  Ida  wooed  me,  misty,  grand; 

Scamander  shouted  music  in  my  brain; 

And  in  the  darkness,  in  the  Trojan  land, 

I  heard  my  horses  champing  golden  grain. 


178  IDEAL    PASSION 


xxxiv 

0  ECSTASY  of  the  remembering  heart 

That  makes  of  all  time  but  one  stretched  day, 

And  brings  us  forward  on  life's  glorious  way 
An  hour  or  two  before  we  shall  depart! 
And  thus  the  whole  world  melts  to  timeless  art, 

And  we  in  the  eternal  moment  stay; 

That  is  accomplished  for  which  all  men  pray, 
And  blunted  is  the  ever-fatal  dart. 

Among  the  flowering  ruins  of  old  time 

I  played  with  beauty's  fragments;  Death  and  Hope 
Upon  the  dizzy  stone  beheld  me  climb, 

And  in  the  acanthus-mantled  marble  grope; 

1  only  heard  the  dawn  Memnonian  chime 

'Mid  the  wild  grasses  and  wild  heliotrope. 


IDEAL   PASSION  179 


xxxv 

REBUKEFUL  reason,  what  words  fall  from  thee? 

"  What  actor-art  is  thine  to  doff  and  don ! 

Is  God,  then,  an  antique  tradition? 
In  whose  name  dost  thou  pray,  away  from  me?  " 
'T  is  true,  steeped  am  I  in  idolatry, 

Poor  poet,  bodied  of  religion! 

It  is  the  only  food  I  feed  upon. 
Drunken  with  God  I  must  forever  be. 

'Tis  true;  each  vintage  yields  me  fellowship, 

That  time  has  crushed  from  man's  long-suffering  race ; 

But  most  the  name  that  blessed  my  childhood's  lip 
Bears  up  my  manhood  to  the  throne  of  grace; 

And  though  my  bread  in  all  men's  tears  I  dip, 
I  eat  it  in  old  Calvary's  weeping-place. 


180  IDEAL   PASSION 


XXXVI 

YET  am  I  such  that  when  the  morning  breaks, 
I  leave  my  garden  of  Gethsemane, 
And  often  will  some  god  companion  me 

Who  from  another  heaven  his  lineage  takes; 

And  on  the  road  such  sweet  discourse  he  makes 
As  fills  the  world  anew  with  deity; 
With  other  eyes  all  former  sights  I  see, 

And  in  my  soul  the  beautiful  awakes. 

So  move  I  on,  compassed  with  forms  of  grace 
Who  greet  me  youngest  of  the  heavenly  line, 

For  that  strange  light  that  aye  shines  in  my  face 
From  her  I  love  in  secret,  makes  them  mine, 

And  they  adopt  me  into  their  high  race, 

Who  only  through  my  lady  walk  divine. 


IDEAL   PASSION  l8l 


XXXVII 

BETWEEN  my  eyes  and  her  so  thin  the  screen 
Grows  with  the  passage  of  my  mortal  years 
That  almost  to  my  human  sight  appears 

The  holy  presence  of  the  life  serene. 

The  skies  of  Perugino,  golden-green, 

Encompass  it;  and  like  an  angel  nears, 
Through  cypress  lights,  she  whom  my  soul  reveres 

And  dim  through  veils  of  nature  I  have  seen. 

Most  like  the  coming  of  the  evening  star, 

When  dawns  the  night  with  that  sweet  miracle, 

Her  apparition  is,  from  me  how  far! 

But  so  doth  love  within  my  bosom  swell, 

And  in  my  eyes  such  wondrous  tidings  are, 
I  kneel,  expectant  of  what  heaven  shall  tell. 


I  82  IDEAL    PASSION 


XXXVIII 

O  THOU  who  clothest  thyself  in  mystic  form, — 

Color,  and  gleam,  and  lonely  distances; 

Whose  seat  the  majesty  of  ocean  is, 
Shot  o'er  with  motions  of  the  skyey  storm! 
Thou  with  whose  mortal  breath  the  soul  doth  warm 

Her  being,  soaring  to  eternal  bliss; 

Whose  revelation  unto  us  is  this 
Dilated  world,  starred  with  its  golden  swarm! 

Thee  rather  in  myself  than  heaven's  vast  light 
Flooding  the  daybreak,  better  I  discern; 

The  glorious  morning  makes  all  nature  bright, 
But  in  the  soul  doth  riot  more,  and  burn; 

A  thousand  beauties  rush  upon  my  sight, 
But  to  the  greater  light  within  I  turn. 


IDEAL   PASSION  183 


XXXIX 

I  KNOW  not  who  thou  art  to  whom  I  pray, 

Or  that  indeed  thou  art,  apart  from  me; 

A  dweller  in  a  lone  eternity, 
Or  a  participant  of  my  sad  way. 
I  only  know  that  at  the  fall  of  day 

Fain  would  I  in  thy  world  companion  thee; 

Upon  the  mystery  of  thy  breast  to  be 
Unconscious,  and  within  thy  love  to  stay. 

I  lose  thee  in  the  largeness  when  I  think; 

And  when  again  I  feel,  I  find  thee  nigh; 
The  more  my  mind  goes  out  to  nature's  brink, 

The  more  thou  art  removed  like  the  sky; 
But  when  concentrated  in  love  I  sink, 

Thou  art  my  nucleus;  there  I  live  and  die. 


184  IDEAL   PASSION 


XL 


IMMORTAL  Love,  too  high  for  my  possessing, — 
Yet,  lower  than  thee,  where  shall  I  find  repose? 
Long  in  my  youth  I  sang  the  morning  rose, 

By  earthly  things  the  heavenly  pattern  guessing! 

Long  fared  I  on,  beauty  and  love  caressing, 
And  finding  in  my  heart  a  place  for  those 
Eternal  fugitives;  the  golden  close 

Of  evening  folds  me,  still  their  sweetness  blessing. 

Oh,  happy  we,  the  first-born  heirs  of  nature, 
For  whom  the  Heavenly  Sun  delays  his  light! 

He  by  the  sweets  of  every  mortal  creature 
Tempers  eternal  beauty  to  our  sight; 

And  by  the  glow  upon  love's  earthly  feature 
Maketh  the  path  of  our  departure  bright. 


IDEAL   PASSION  185 


XLI 

ADONIS-LIKE,  gored  by  the  rough  world's  wound, 
Bleeding  and  dead  full  often  have  I  lain ; 
A  thousand  times,  I  think,  I  have  been  slain, 

And  all  my  beauty  strown  upon  the  ground; 

And  I  have  heard  above  me  then  a  sound 
Of  tears,  and  hid  lament,  immortal  pain, 
Of  one  for  whom  my  worship  was  not  vain, 

Though  she  divinity  hath  ne'er  unbound 

To  me  nor  to  another;  rose-like  there 

I  felt  strange  touches  on  my  limbs  and  head, 

A  shadow  moulding  o'er  me  in  the  air 

Full  of  the  dawning  lights  about  the  dead, 

And  kisses,  smothered  in  a  woman's  hair, 
On  my  cold  face  and  lips  in  darkness  shed. 


I  86  IDEAL   PASSION 


XLI I 

FAREWELL,  my  Muse!  for,  lo,  there  is  no  end 
Of  singing  of  the  winged  and  soaring  choir, 
Whose  flights  mount  up,  and,  circling  high  and 
higher, 

My  heavenly  salutations  to  her  send. 

I  found  her  upon  earth  my  only  friend; 
She  fed  my  boyhood  with  thy  holy  fire; 
She  drew  my  manhood  from  the  world's  desire. 

Oh,  unto  my  frail  state  may  she  yet  lend 

Her  strength,  stay  my  faint  heart,  and  still  console 
A  little  longer;  with  a  poor  man's  bread 

Succor  my  poverty;  and  pay  my  toll 

To  Charon,  when  to  Lethe  I  am  led! 

And  ever  round  her  shine  the  aureole 
Of  my  sad  verses,  after  I  am  dead! 


POEMS   OF  THE   GREAT  WAR 


SONNETS    WRITTEN    IN    THE 
FALL   OF    1914 


AWAKE,  ye  nations,  slumbering  supine, 
Who  round  enring  the  European  fray! 
Heard  ye  the  trumpet  sound?  "The  Day!  the  Day! 

The  last  that  shall  on  England's  empire  shine ! 

The  Parliament  that  broke  the  Right  Divine 
Shall  see  her  realm  of  reason  swept  away, 
And  lesser  nations  shall  the  sword  obey — 

The  sword  o'er  all  carve  the  great  world's  design!  " 

So  on  the  English  Channel  boasts  the  foe 
On  whose  imperial  brow  death's  helmet  nods. 

Look  where  his  hosts  o'er  bloody  Belgium  go, 
And  mix  a  nation's  past  with  blazing  sods! 

A  kingdom's  waste!  a  people's  homeless  woe! 
Man's  broken  Word,  and  violated  gods! 


189 


POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


II 


FAR  fall  the  day  when  England's  realm  shall  see 

The  sunset  of  dominion!     Her  increase 

Abolishes  the  man-dividing  seas, 
And  frames  the  brotherhood  on  earth  to  be! 
She,  in  free  peoples  planting  sovereignty, 

Orbs  half  the  civil  world  in  British  peace; 

And  though  time  dispossess  her,  and  she  cease, 
Rome-like  she  greatens  in  man's  memory. 

Oh,  many  a  crown  shall  sink  in  war's  turmoil, 
And  many  a  new  republic  light  the  sky, 

Fleets  sweep  the  ocean,  nations  till  the  soil, 
Genius  be  born  and  generations  die, 

Orient  and  Occident  together  toil, 
Ere  such  a  mighty  work  man  rears  on  high! 


SONNETS  WRITTEN  IN  THE  FALL  OF    1914        191 


III 


HARKEN,  the  feet  of  the  Destroyer  tread 
The  wine-press  of  the  nations;  fast  the  blood 
Pours  from  the  side  of  Europe;  in  full  flood 

On  the  septentrional  watershed 

The  rivers  of  fair  France  are  running  red! 
England,  the  mother-eyrie  of  our  brood, 
That  on  the  summit  of  dominion  stood, 

Shakes  in  the  blast:  heaven  battles  overhead! 

Lift  up  thy  head,  O  Rheims,  of  ages  heir 
That  treasured  up  in  thee  their  glorious  sum; 

Upon  whose  brow,  prophetically  fair, 

Flamed  the  great  morrow  of  the  world  to  come; 

Haunt  with  thy  beauty  this  volcanic  air 
Ere  yet  thou  close,  O  Flower  of  Christendom! 


192       POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


IV 


As  when  the  shadow  of  the  sun's  eclipse 
Sweeps  on  the  earth,  and  spreads  a  spectral  air, 
As  if  the  universe  were  dying  there, 

On  continent  and  isle  the  darkness  dips, 

Unwonted  gloom,  and  on  the  Atlantic  slips; 
So  in  the  night  the  Belgian  cities  flare 
Horizon-wide;  the  wandering  people  fare 

Along  the  roads,  and  load  the  fleeing  ships. 

And  westward  borne  that  planetary  sweep, 
Darkening  o'er  England  and  her  times  to  be, 

Already  steps  upon  the  ocean-deep! 
Watch  well,  my  country,  that  unearthly  sea, 

Lest  when  thou  thinkest  not,  and  in  thy  sleep. 
Unapt  for  war,  that  gloom  enshadow  thee! 


SONNETS  WRITTEN  IN  THE  FALL  OF   1914       193 


I  PRAY  for  peace;  yet  peace  is  but  a  prayer. 

How  many  wars  have  been  in  my  brief  years! 

All  races  and  all  faiths,  both  hemispheres, 
My  eyes  have  seen  embattled  everywhere 
The  wide  earth  through;  yet  do  I  not  despair 

Of  peace,  that  slowly  through  far  ages  nears ; 

Though  not  to  me  the  golden  morn  appears, 
My  faith  is  perfect  in  time's  issue  fair. 

For  man  doth  build  on  an  eternal  scale, 
And  his  ideals  are  framed  of  hope  deferred; 

The  millennium  came  not;  yet  Christ  did  not  fail, 
Though  ever  unaccomplished  is  His  word; 

Him  Prince  of  Peace,  though  unenthroned,  we  hail, 
Supreme  when  in  all  bosoms  He  be  heard. 


194       POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


VI 


THIS  is  my  faith,  and  my  mind's  heritage, 
Wherein  I  toil,  though  in  a  lonely  place, 
Who  yet  world-wide  survey  the  human  race 

Unequal  from  wild  nature  disengage 

Body  and  soul,  and  life's  old  strife  assuage; 
Still  must  abide,  till  heaven  perfect  its  grace, 
And  love  grown  wisdom  sweeten  in  man's  face, 

Alike  the  Christian  and  the  heathen  rage. 

The  tutelary  genius  of  mankind 

Ripens  by  slow  degrees  the  final  State, 

That  in  the  soul  shall  its  foundations  find 
And  only  in  victorious  love  grow  great; 

Patient  the  heart  must  be,  humble  the  mind, 
That  doth  the  greater  births  of  time  await! 


SONNETS  WRITTEN  IN  THE  FALL  OF   1914        195 

VII 

WHENCE  not  unmoved  I  see  the  nations  form 
From  Dover  to  the  fountains  of  the  Rhine, 
A  hundred  leagues,  the  scarlet  battle-line, 

And  by  the  Vistula  great  armies  swarm, 

A  vaster  flood;  rather  my  breast  grows  warm, 
Seeing  free  peoples  of  the  earth  combine 
Under  one  standard,  with  one  countersign, 

Grown  brothers  in  the  universal  storm. 

And  never  through  the  wide  world  yet  there  rang 
A  mightier  summons!     O  Thou  who  from  the  side 

Of  Athens  and  the  loins  of  Caesar  sprang, 

Strike,  Europe,  with  half  the  coming  world  allied, 

For  those  ideals  for  which,  since  Homer  sang, 
The  hosts  of  thirty  centuries  have  died! 


EDITH  CAVELL 

THE  world  hath  its  own  dead;  great  motions  start 
In  human  breasts,  and  make  for  them  a  place 
In  that  hushed  sanctuary  of  the  race 

Where  every  day  men  come,  kneel  and  depart. 

Of  them,  O  English  nurse,  henceforth  thou  art, 
A  name  to  pray  on,  and  to  all  a  face 
Of  household  consecration:  such  His  grace 

Whose  universal  dwelling  is  the  heart. 

O  gentle  hands  that  soothed  the  soldier's  brow 
And  knew  no  service  save  of  Christ,  the  Lord! 
Thy  country  now  is  all  humanity! 

How  like  a  flower  thy  womanhood  doth  show 
In  the  harsh  scything  of  the  German  sword, 
And  beautifies  the  world  that  saw  it  die! 


196 


SEA   BLOOD 

Written  After  the  Loss  of  the  "  Ancona" 

"WHOSO  offendeth  one  of  these,"— the  tale 
My  childhood  conned.    O  bright  Tunisian  sea, 
That  often  with  thy  waves  hast  harbored  me, 

What  sounds,  far-heard,  make  my  old  sea  blood  pale, 

Who  here  first  saw  the  whitening  of  a  sail 

Eastward,  and  thanked  God  that  my  lot  should  be 
Beside  the  ocean's  endless  alchemy 

To  breathe  life-long  the  salt  Atlantic  gale? 

Clamor  of  panic  and  war's  driving  shell 

Rifting  that  turquoise-green,  that  violet  floor, 
And  cries  of  death  parting  the  foamy  sphere! 

What  men  are  these  who,  vomited  from  hell, 
Bloody  anew  the  brilliant  Corsair  shore 
Our  fleet  first  ransomed,  to  our  memories  dear? 


197 


WEEP  for  our  dead!  but  more  our  honor  weep! 

Thrown  on  the  Irish  coast  their  bodies  drift 

Homeless  and  stark,  and,  moving,  weakly  lift 
An  idle  arm  from  their  eternal  sleep, 
Where  once  our  infant  navy  rocked  the  deep 

In  our  first  years.    Ay  me!  their  ocean  shrift! 

Up  from  the  gray  sea  through  day's  rosy  rift 
What  dread  alarums  to  our  new  world  leap! 

So  shook  the  hills  above,  seas  underneath, 
When  Roland  wound  the  blast  of  Roncesvalles 

And  roused  Christ's  ancient  world  with  dying  breath. 
Answer,  O  France,  where  the  vast  Russias  fall! 

Flock,  England,  to  the  harvest  homes  of  death! 
Harken!  again,  that  Lusitanian  call! 


198 


ON   THE    ITALIAN    FRONT 

1916 

<CI  WILL  die  cheering,  if  I  needs  must  die; 

So  shall  my  last  breath  write  upon  my  lips 

Viva  Italia/  when  my  spirit  slips 
Down  the  great  darkness  from  the  mountain  sky; 
And  those  who  shall  behold  me  where  I  lie 

Shall  murmur, — '  Look  you !  how  his  spirit  dips 

From  glory  into  glory!  the  eclipse 
Of  death  is  vanquished!     Lo,  his  victor-cry!  ' 

"  Live  thou  upon  my  lips,  Italia  mine, 
The  sacred  death-cry  of  my  frozen  clay! 

Let  thy  dear  light  from  my  dead  body  shine 
And  to  the  passer-by  thy  message  say: 

'  Ecco !  though  heaven  has  made  my  skies  divine, 
My  sons'  love  sanctifies  my  soil  for  aye!  ' " 


199 


THE    BELL-TOWER 

THERE  is  a  bell-tower  in  my  brain,  that  tolls — 
And  tolls — and  tolls, — night-long,  no  pause,  no  rest,- 
"  Eugen',  Raimondo,  Salvator',  Ernest', 

Giovanni,   Antonin',    Vincenz'," — and   rolls, 

Peal  after  peal,  peace  to  departed  souls! 
Dost  hear  it,  Napoli?  hear'st,  empty  nest 
Among  the  violets  on  Etna's  breast? — 

"  Eugenio,  peace!  "  thee  first  death  aureoles. 

And  unknown  names,  pulsing  along  my  brain, 
(Who  lives?  who  dies?)  go  sounding  like  a  bell, 

Sounding  forlorn  o'er  mount,  and  sea,  and  plain, — 
Now  far,  now  near,  crying  the  long  farewell; 

Car  so, — O  sound  immitigable  of  pain! — 
Gorizia,  Isonzo,  San  Michel/ 


200 


A   SONG   OF   SUNRISE 

On  the  Morning  of  the  Russian  Revolution 

To  those  who  drink  the  golden  mist 

Whereon  the  world's  horizons  rest, 
Who  teach  the  peoples  to  resist 

The  terrors  of  the  human  breast: — 
By  burning  stake  and  prison-camp 

They  lead  the  march  of  man  divine, 
Above  whose  head  the  sacred  lamp 

Of  liberty  doth  blaze  and  shine; 
O'er  blood  and  tears  and  nameless  woe 

They  hail  far  off  the  dawning  light; 
Through  faith  in  them  the  nations  go, 

Sun-smitten  in  the  deepest  night: — 
Honor  to  them  from  East  to  West 

Be  on  the  shouting  earth  to-day! 
Holy  their  memory!     Sweet  their  rest! 

Who  fill  the  skies  with  freedom's  ray! 


2OI 


SIBERIA 

The  Return  of  the  Exiles 

THE  gates  of  the  Siberian  waste  stand  wide; 

Great  joy  has  thrilled  the  mighty  wilderness; 

The  message  of  the  Lord  has  come  to  bless 
The  souls  in  bondage;  broken  is  the  pride 
Of  the  invincible  tyrant  who  doth  ride 

On  human  hearts,  and  thrones  him  on  distress ! 

Fallen  he  is!  his  victims  numberless 
Crowd  the  long  roads  by  steppe  and  mountain-side. 

So  when  our  Lord  descended  into  hell   • 
And  broke  the  fetters  of  the  spirits  in  prison, 

A  glorious  company  to  heaven  made  way. 
What  triumph  more  divine  doth  history  tell 
Than  Truth  from  her  captivity  arisen, 
And  Faith  rejoicing  in  her  holy  ray! 


202 


THE   CAUCASUS 

LIFT  up  your  peaks!  O  sun-struck  Caucasus! 
You  first  beheld  the  scarred  Promethean  form 
On  your  high  cliffs,  stretched  to  the  icy  storm, 

The  vulture's  beak;  the  multitudinous 

Woes  of  the  ancient  world  calamitous 
Age-long  besieged  his  heart:  there,  when  our  swarm 
Of  golden  youth  with  generous  hope  grew  warm, 

Crag-like  hung  o'er  then  great  Prometheus. 

Lo,  from  the  holy  East,  where  light  is  born, 
Tornado-like  the  globe  of  glory  rears 

A  fiery  sunrise  with  red  battle  torn! 

On  that  hoar  world,  grown  old  in  blood  and  tears, 

The  century-waited  and  millennial  morn 
Bolts  the  long  lightning  of  a  thousand  years. 


203 


HO!   THE    SPRINGTIME! 

In  the  Trenches.    Italy:  1917 

I 

Ho!  the  springtime! 

Springtime  sets  a  young  heart  thinking. 

Then  it  was  spring,  when  I  gave  my  signore  the  flowers 
of  the  field, 

And  my  brother  brought  him  great  violets  that  the  per 
fumed  gardens  yield; 

Sun,  and  field-flowers,  and  violets  bound  our  bosoms  and 
sealed. 

Ho!  the  sun  in  the  campagna!  the  flow  of  the  sap  of  the 

world! 
The  blossom  of  dawn!  the  irised  sea!  the  far  beach  surf- 

impearled!  — 
And  all  their  joy  in  our  bosoms  like  a  flower  from  the 

bud  unfurled! 
One  leap,  one  thrill,  one  throb  of  the  manifold  pulse 

divine 
Flooded  and  blended  our  being,  as  the  grapes  are  one 

in  the  wine. 

204 


HO!  THE  SPRINGTIME!  205 

Sweet  there  was  our  life  together  in  the  garden  this  side 

of  the  grave, 
And  the  springtime  smiling  on  us  was  the  smile  of 

flower  and  wave. 
O  my  heart! 

n 

Ho!  the  springtime! 

Time  of  kiss  and  time  of  blossom — 

Time  of  faring  on  the  sea's  blue  bosom — 

Time  of  thinking  of  another  spring — 

When  we  lived,  young,  open  hearts  together, 

Roved  the  greening  land,  the  violet  weather! — 

Clover,  poppy,  almond-bough 

Murmured  it  then,  murmur  it  now: 

"  Love  is  coming!  this  is  it!  this  is  it! 

Passes  the  bloom!  oh,  woe  to  miss  it! 

The  voice,  the  touch,  the  fond  caress 

That  undivided  lovers  bless!  " 

0  my  heart,  how  sad  is  thinking! 

in 

"  Ho!  is  it  spring?  "  in  the  dawn  I  wake  up  saying. 

1  can  hear,  far  off,  my  mother  (poveretta)  praying 
For  us  three — 

And  Italy! 


205 


2O6       POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

There  where  mighty  Etna,  snow-clad,  thunder-torn  and 

earthquake-riven, 

Lifts  the  breathing  springtime  to  the  fire-black  heaven! 
Oh,  the  spring! 

Ho!  is  it  spring? 

SI/  thoughts,  kisses,  flowers,  caresses! 

Time  of  blossom  and  endearing, 

To  dark  death  forever  nearing!  — 

Time  of  weeping! 

Time  of  the  black  hour  toward  us  creeping! — 

Signore!  O  signor'! 

Ho!  is  it  spring? 

Time  of  wandering  forth  on  earth's  green  bosom! 

Time  of  passing  of  youth's  almond-blossom! 

Far  we  wandered,  far  we  wandered,  far,  and  far  away!  — 

Across  the  greening  lands,  across  the  violet  seas,  and  far, 

and  far  away! — 

Flowers  of  the  field  I  cannot  bring,  signer'. 
Thinking,  to  thee  I  send  the  kiss  of  spring,  signor'. 


JUSTICE 

COME,  Lord  of  hosts!  establish  righteousness! 

And  in  the  hearts  of  men  and  nations  build 

Love's  great  Republic  that  the  soul  has  willed, 
And  with  Thy  mercy  cover  our  distress! 
How  many  broken  realms  world-wide  confess 

The  weakness  wherewithal  man's  state  is  filled! 

Pride  in  our  vain  accomplishment  is  killed; 
Our  hopes,  departing,  leave  us  comfortless. 

O,  raise  our  spirits  from  the  deadening  shock 

That,  like  an  earthquake,  blasteth  city  and  town, 

And  ease  earth's  unintelligible  woe! 
Millions  of  men  their  sorrows  interlock 

Before  Thee  coming;  prayers  Thy  praises  drown. 

Justice,  O  Lord,  high  o'er  all  nations  show! 


207 


THE    MESSAGE 

GREAT  documents  our  chronicles  afford, 
Since  the  low  cabin  of  the  Mayflower 
Drew  the  first  instrument:  and  human  power 

Ne'er  found  a  seat  so  firm,  so  long  a  sword, 

As  issued  thence,  clothed  in  the  Written  Word, 
Which  there  began  in  time  its  sovereign  hour: 
Whatever  storm  may  rise  or  tempest  lower, 

Through  lengthening  ages  is  that  still  voice  heard. 

Jefferson  with  that  might  breathed  forth  the  state; 

Washington,  thus,  moulded  its  policy; 
Lincoln  beheld  the  wilderness  grown  great, 

And  with  his  pen  filled  it  with  liberty; 
Now  is  our  message  to  all  nations  sent: — 
Go  forth,  sweet  gospel,  freedom's  argument! 


208 


FANEUIL   HALL 

O  DARLING  nest  of  rebels, 

King-hated  Boston  town, 
Whose  brood  is  still  a-rearing 
To  pull  the  tyrant  down, — 
Once  more  to  Fanueil  Hall,  freemen,  come! 
There's  a  virtue  in  the  name, — 
And  the  words,  they  turn  to  flame, 
That  breathe  from  Freedom's  cradle  and  her  home. 

Old  abolition  tocsin, 

Strike  out  the  present  hour! 
Throng,  men,  upon  the  ringing  stones 

Whence  Phillips  drew  his  power! 
His  mother's  hand  along  the  narrow  pave 
Held  up  his  toddling  feet, 
And  he  swore  to  make  the  street 
Too  pure  to  bear  the  footstep  of  a  slave. 

Come!  once  more  rock  the  Cradle 
Whence  rose  our  sires  free  men! 

Till  all  downtrodden  peoples 
Shall  have  their  rights  again! 
209 


2IO       POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Send  loud  cheers  echoing  round  the  holy  wall! 

Hail,  to  heroic  deeds! 

Hail,  every  land  that  bleeds! 
Tongue  of  the  thoughts  of  freemen,  Faneuil  Hall! 

The  pictured  lips  of  patriots 
Speak  out  for  the  opprest, 
And  every  heart  turns  orator 

And  pleads  within  the  breast, 
Upon  whatever  land  the  despots  fall: 
Once  more,  where  Adams  spake, 
Bid  the  sacred  rafters  shake 
With  the  roaring  popular  voice  of  Faneuil  Hall! 


THE    EAGLE 

THE  country  of  our  sires  was  great  of  soul ; 

And,  if  she  draws  to  battle,  it  must  be 

She  bares  her  sword  for  peace  with  liberty, 
Justice  her  standard  pure,  honor  her  goal. 
She  mails  her  hand  to  write  a  later  scroll, 

And  share  with  all  mankind  her  destiny; 

Though  God  has  bastioned  her  with  either  sea, 
Freedom  hath  no  frontiers.    Where  heaven  doth  roll, 

Fly  forth,  great  Eagle,  that  of  old  didst  sit 
At  Jove's  right  hand  beside  the  wakeful  throne! 

Gazer  on  vast  horizons  battle-lit, 
With  mightier  pinions  fly  to  nobler  wars! 

Soar  in  the  zenith,  heavenly  bird,  alone, 
And  o'er  the  storm  bear  in  thy  beak  the  stars! 


211 


THE   FLAG 

Kiss  the  loud  winds,  O  darling  of  our  hearts, 

And  shoot  o'er  land  and  sea  thy  beams  world- wide! 

How  many  thousands  in  thy  light  have  died, 
Radiant  and  sweet!  now  from  our  banners  darts 
A  greater  glory;  in  our  bosoms  starts 

A  deeper  joy ;  so  swells  the  long-pent  tide 

Of  full  devotion  to  thy  sacred  side, 
And  from  impatient  millions  doubt  departs. 

Advance  thy  colors  in  the  captain-files 

That  vanward  lead  the  many-languaged  host, 
Like  mighty  waves  that  lift  an  angry  sea! — 

Break  thou  the  German!     Miles  on  headlong  miles 
Drive  him  from  churchless  land  and  shipless  coast, 
Till  law  again  for  right  be  sanctuary! 


212 


ON  THE  DEPARTURE  OF  THE 
TROOPS  FOR  FRANCE 

WHO  are  these  watching  from  ancestral  doors 
The  instant  passing  of  our  youth  for  France? 
A  mighty  pageant  of  the  world's  romance 

Their  eyes  have  seen:  it  fills  their  native  shores 

With  an  undying  moment;  wide  it  pours 

On  silent  hearts,  o'erawed,  the  voice,  the  glance, 
The  last,  fond  gleam  of  each  loved  countenance, 

And  the  heart  trembles,  while  the  spirit  soars. 

The  generations  draw  immortal  breath 

That  breathe  a  nation's  soul.    From  sire  to  son 

The  glory  of  the  fathers  entereth 

The  children's  hearts,  and  maketh  all  as  one: 

True  to  the  race  breaks  out  the  holy  flame, 

And  to  all  lands  doth  freedom's  blood  proclaim. 


213 


ALLIES 


IN  the  dark  of  the  mine, 

In  the  bloom  of  the  sun, 
In  the  leap  of  the  vine 

I  heard  the  war-message  run; 
Heard  old  earth  softly  crooning 

And  whispering  to  her  own, 
The  hymn  of  man  attuning 

Under  republic  and  throne: — 
"  Nature  my  garment,  love  my  creed, 

And  the  thought  of  man  to  grow  in; 
Labor  the  arm,  freedom  the  seed, 

And  the  field  of  time  to  sow  in! 
What  are  these  mighty  labors  worth, 
If  Justice  die  upon  the  earth?  " 

ii 

I  heard  the  old  earth  calling 
Loud  over  plains  and  mountains, 

Voices,  arising  and  falling, 

In  the  noise  of  ocean- fountains: — 
214 


ALLIES  215 

"Waken,  old  allies  of  man, 
Ye,  who  were  borne  in  my  bosom! 

He,  in  whom  freedom  began, 
The  topmost  flower  and  blossom, 

The  glory  and  fruit  of  all 
The  ages  have  lifted  on  high 
On  the  heavenmost  branch  of  the  sky, — 
Shall  he  fail?    Shall  he  drop?    Shall  he  die?— 

What  are  ye  all,  if  he  fall? 

What  are  we  all,  if  he  die? 

in 

Ships  for  the  pilot  of  time, 

Who  hath  the  stars  for  eyes! 
Room  for  the  sailor  sublime, 

The  unroller  of  the  skies! 

He,  who  stretched,  past  hope's  increase, 
Freedom  o'er  the  laughing  foam, 
And  on  the  billows  set  her  home, 

The  boundless  empire  of  the  seas, 

Continent-bastioned,  island-strown, — 

And  grasped  the  keys  of  fates  unknown! 
Let  nature's  universal  whole 

Press  on  the  common  toil, — 
Corn,  and  cotton,  and  coal! 

Copper,  and  iron,  and  oil! 


2l6       POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

What  are  ye  all,  if  he  shall  fall? 
What  you  or  I,  if  he  shall  die? 


IV 

He  harnessed  our  wild  forces; 

He  edged  our  might  with  mind; 
Our  ways  are  heavenly  courses 

His  instincts  have  divined: 
All  light  that  we  inherit 
Pours  from  his  azure  spirit, 

That  hath  a  higher  law — 
Honor  and  freedom  knowing, 
Justice  and  mercy  showing, 

That  our  dumb  worlds  o'erawe: 
The  truths  his  lips  let  fall 

Point  the  celestial  pole; 
For  the  greatest  ally  of  all 

Is  man-'s  own  soul." 


TO   S , 

Mtat.  15 

WHEN  I  was  fifteen? — let  me  see, — 

It  was  a  year  of  memory. 

Then  my  nostrils  first  drew  breath 

Of  the  lilies  of  France  on  winds  of  death; 

I  remember  well  the  mounting  fire 

That  caught  my  blood,  the  sweet  desire 

So  to  suffer,  so  to  dare; — 

That  was  the  eve  of  my  knighthood's  prayer. 

And  you, — you  see  the  awful  flame, 
Whereat  my  boyish  ardors  came, 
Light  the  lands,  and  leap  the  seas, 
And  bathe  with  creeping  glow  the  knees 
Of  Freedom  in  her  chosen  place, — 
The  peaceful  temple  of  her  race: — 
Pray  God,  your  manhood  eyes  may  see, 
Clasping  the  world,  her  victory! 

Christmas,  1917. 


217 


RUMANIA 

ANOTHER  land  has  crashed  into  the  deep, 

The  heir  and  namesake  of  that  Rome,  whose  laws 
Spread    the   great   peace. — Gray    Power,    that   yet 
o'erawes 

The  thoughts  of  men,  first  to  bid  nations  keep 

The  bounds  of  right,  and  earth's  wild  borders  sleep, 
O,  from  thy  pinnacle  'mid  time's  applause 
Salute,  great  Rome,  the  victim  of  man's  cause, 

Thy  child,  Rumania! — Nay,  not  ours  to  weep, 

O  Latin  Race!  how  doth  our  debt  increase 
At  every  flash  of  thy  unfathomed  soul, 

Long  on  the  rock  of  justice  founding  peace, 
While  ever  round  thee  new-born  ages  roll! 

Genius  divine!  when  shall  thy  glory  cease! 
Rise,  rise,  Rumania!  yet  thy  soul  is  whole! 


218 


THE    RED    CROSS    CHRISTMAS 

ON  Christmas  morn  in  Judah's  skies 

Bright  angels  sang  the  birth 
Of  Him  to  whom  hosannas  rise 

Throughout  the  ransomed  earth. 

Now,  crossing  North,  South,  East,  and  West, 

The  lines  of  battle  go; 
Sorrow  is  every  nation's  guest, 

The  heavens  fill  with  woe. 

Seek  ye  to  see  the  blessed  light 
That  orbed  that  radiant  song? 

Seek  ye  the  Christ-child  in  the  night?— 
Ye  need  not  travel  long. 

Where  Rachel  weeps  in  all  earth's  lands, 
Where  maid  and  mother  grieve, 

Where  over  child  and  soldier  stands 
The  Red  Cross,  see,  and  believe! 


219 


ARMENIA 


O  FAIR  Lord  Christ,  when  yet  thy  face  was  young 
In  heaven,  and  thy  witnesses  were  few, 
Humble  thy  Kingdom  here,  nor  yet  grace  drew 

Emperors  to  the  breast  where  Lazarus  clung, — 

When  round  a  dying  world  thy  arms  were  flung, — 
Armenia  first  unto  thy  mercies  flew, 
To  the  pure  gospel  through  all  ages  true, 

And  Him,  whose  sorrows  on  the  world's  cross  hung. 

She,  who  beheld  the  glorious  covenant, 
When  o'er  the  Flood,  at  the  Creative  Word, 
Bright  above  Ararat  sprang  the  bow  in  heaven, — 

What  to  her  agony  will  thy  pity  grant? 

For  unto  her  through  faith  in  thee,  O  Lord, 
The  thorny  crown  of  Christendom  is  given. 


220 


ARMENIA  221 


II 


BRING,  all  ye  nations,  myrrh  and  frankincense, 
As  when,  with  gold  and  many  an  orient  gem, 
About  the  cradled  child  of  Bethlehem 

Like  heaven  the  holy  stable  glittered,  whence 

Issued  salvation!     Pour  the  providence 
Of  earthly  kingdoms  at  the  feet  of  them 
Who  would  a  world-wide  flood  of  sorrow  stem 

And,  Christ-like,  feed  the  multitude  immense! 

Nor  think  Armenia  only  bears  the  Cross 

Through  deserts  wild  and  up  her  mountain-chain; 
But  every  nation  climbs  its  Calvary, 

And  hath  its  consecration;  earthly  loss 
Thousands  on  thousands  find  is  heavenly  gain: 
So  the  world-soul  renews  humanity. 


AN    EASTER   ODE 
1918 

Inscribed  in  Memory  of  Lieutenant 
Edward  Bedinger  Mitchell 

DULCE    ET   DECORUM    EST    PRO    PATRIA    MORI 


O  RISEN  Spring,  thy  rosy  tides 

O'er  earth's  pale  shoulder  glow; 
From  heavenly  peaks,  down  Europe's  sides, 

The  torrent  sunbeams  flow; 

Across  the  verdure-belted  zones  what  ceaseless  seasons  go! 
All,  all,  indifferent  to  human  woe! 

The  sea  with  corpses  blossoms,  as  of  old 
On  the  bright  Salaminian  bay 

Ere  the  gray  waste,  unrolled, 

On  the  wide- wanderer's  eyes  flung  dim  Pacific  spray; 
Immeasurable  spreads  afar 
The  battle-tossing  plain  of  war, 
And  of  fair  cities  makes  a  gaunt  volcanic  scar; 
From  up-torn  realms  untenanted 
The  beasts  and  birds  affrighted  fled; 

222 


AN   EASTER  ODE  223 

Prone,  where  the  sire  his  life-blood  shed, 
The  mother  on  the  child  lies  dead; 
The  torch,  the  axe,  the  bomb,  the  shell 
Paint  earth  and  heaven  in  hues  of  hell ; 
Famine,  massacre,  slavery  fall 
On  man  in  horrid  carnival. 
Great  is  thy  triumph,  modern  age! 
Progress  thy  bane,  science  thy  scourge, 
In  sea  and  air  new  wars  to  wage, 
And  aye  to  evil  fates,  incessant,  urge 
Man's  miserable  race,  on  ruin's  awful  verge! 

ii 

Meanwhile,  on  blue-horizoned  shores,  against  Floridian 

skies, 
Lone,  white  cranes,  standing,  fish;  from  sunset-colored 

caves 

The  darting  mullet  hues  the  shadow-haunted  waves; 
In  pale,  pellucid  depths  the  rude  crustacean  lies. 
There,  with  the  dsedal  earth 
The  great  Creator  toys; 
A  thousand  shapes  of  mirth, 
A  million  vivid  joys, 
Like  grains  of  coral  sand, 
Drop  from  His  listless  hand. — 
How  should  man  understand? 


224  POEMS   OF   THE  GREAT   WAR 

III 

O  Easter  moon  that  glorious 

In  highest  heaven  dost  roll, 
What  saw  you  on  the  Caucasus 
Great  with  Prometheus'  soul? 
Where  Calvary's  shining  road  makes  up  from  the  dark 

vale  below, 
Saw   you   thorn-crowned   beneath   a   Cross   a   man   of 

sorrows  go, 
The  Sufferer,  who  never  dies,  but  bears  the  whole  world's 

woe? 
Saw  you  from  Athens'  ghostly  hand  the  torch  of  truth 

burn  bright, 
That  spreads  within  the  mind  the  world  where  shall  be 

no  more  night? 
Saw  you  the  Tiber,  Seine  and  Thames,  the  floods  that 

shake  the  North, 
Pour  inexhaustibly  their  hosts  of  stern-faced  freemen 

forth? 
Far  as  your  circling  light  below  hath  on  our  oceans 

broke, 
Saw  you  the  little  acorns  grown,  blown  from  the  English 

oak, 

The   tree  of  liberty,   that   laughs   amid   the  thunder 
stroke? 


AN  EASTER  ODE  225 

And  Paris,  Honor's   fount — O  name  that  never   time 

forgets! — 
Look  you!  how  high  in  our  sad  heavens  her  ray  of  glory 

jets! 
Look!  as  your  crescent  horn  but  late  filled  its  dark  curve 

with  light, 

So  grows  America  on  earth  amid  the  nations  bright! — 
Or  is  it,  crystal  sphere  serene  that  hast  no  mortal  stain, 
You  do  not  mind,  at  all,  these  things,  which  man  has 

done  in  vain? 
Oh,  can  it  be,  then,  nature's  law 

That  her  the  vision  fails, — 
The  dream  divine,  and  holy  awe 

That  in  man  most  avails? 
And  know  you  not,  celestial  orb 
The  light  men's  souls  from  you  absorb 
Beholding,  when  dark  deaths  they  risk, 
With  highest  instincts  in  accord, 
How  pure  in  heaven  your  golden  disk 
Haloes  the  Risen  Lord? 


IV 

Upon  the  border  of  eternity — 
As  some  Greek  runner,  on  high  mountain  ways, 
Whom  now  at  eve  his  speed  of  morn  delays, 
Hears  the  far  rote  of  his  own  native  sea — 


226       POEMS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

I  barken  unto  deathless  voices  rolled 

From  the  great  deep,  and  silent  lyres  of  old; 

And  with  the  sound  thereof  my  lips  grow  bold. 

Man's  is  another  world 
Wherein  the  spirit  flies; 
Truth  at  his  heart  impearled, 
A  thousand  deaths  he  dies. 
O  wake  again,  Tyrtaean  lyre 
That  flung  the  world's  first  tyrants  low! 
Heap  up  thy  urn  with  holy  fire 
That  now  doth  in  all  peoples  glow! 
Once  more  the  dreadful  trumpet  sound 
Of  freedom,  Macedonian  mound! 
Thou,  gray  Thermopylae,  arise! 
Who  lifted  first  on  human  eyes 
Victorious  shields  of  sacrifice, — 
And  old  Simonides  thy  glory  crowned, 
Leading  the  poets'  bright,  immortal  choir. 
Still  rolls  aloft  the  heroic  hymn 
Of  men,  when  light  and  life  grow  dim. 
O  sacred  bands,  dear  to  the  lyre's  blest  breath 
That,  ever  resonant  with  noble  death, 
Sweeps  eagle-borne  round  glory's  cloudy  wreath, 
A  thousand  dawns  we  sang  you  to  the  fight, 
A  thousand  victories  sang  you  home  at  night! 


AN  EASTER  ODE  227 

Look  up,  ye  hosts!  o'er  heroes  when  they  die 

Opens  in  heaven  another  climbing  sky! 

Sweet  is  your  memory  here,  and  fresh  with  tears 

That  wash  from  shining  eyes  our  mortal  fears. — 

Peace  at  the  last,  and  moods  all  joys  above, 

Calm  thoughts  that  from  just  reason  take  their  birth! 

Truth  at  the  last,  and  liberty,  and  love 

Shall,  like  your  glory,  fill  the  ensanguined  earth! 


TO   THE   WINGLESS   VICTORY 

A  Prayer 

WINGLESS  victory,  whose  shrine 

By  the  Parthenon 
Glorified  our  youth  divine, 
Harken! — they  are  gone, 
The  young  eagles  of  our  nest, 
They,  the  brightest,  bravest,  best, 
They  are  flown! 

Lilies  of  France, 

When  first  they  flew, 
Led  their  lone  advance 
Great  heaven  through. 
Now  soar  they,  brood  on  brood, 
Like  stars  for  multitude, 
To  France!     France! 

Save  thou  the  golden  flight 

That  wakes  the  morn, 
And  dares  the  azure  height, 

The  tempest's  scorn! 
228 


TO  THE    WINGLESS    VICTORY  229 

Save  them  o'er  land  and  sea, 

In  deeps  of  air! 
Thy  grace,  where'er  they  be, 

Ensphere  them  there! 

Save  them,  the  country's  pride, 

Our  winged  youth! 
And  where  they  fall  enskied, 

Save  thou  the  truth, 

O  Wingless  Victory! 


ITALY 

BELOVED  land!     O  consecrated  ground! 
That  givest  the  sons  of  memory  a  grave, 
And,  tendering  oft  the  life  thou  couldst  not  save, 

Soothest  the  breast's  immedicable  wound! 

Orphans  of  time  and  fate  in  thee  have  found 
What  motherhood!     What  dear  repose  the  brave 
Remnants  of  strife  on  every  land  and  wave, 

Since  thy  great  sires  touched  the  predestined  bound! 

Heaven  set  thee  as  a  mark  in  our  life's  sea 
To  light  the  homeless  masters  of  mankind; 

Still  on  thy  precious  soil,  while  time  shall  be, 
Spirits  supreme  their  sacred  limit  find; 

There,  at  Rome's  heart,  the  whole  world  kneels  to  thee, 
Truth,  beauty,  fame, — the  soul  of  man  enshrined. 


230 


THE    RIFLE 

In  hospital.    Italy:  1918. 

AGAIN,  my  rifle,  O  again  to  grasp  you 

And  to  a  soldier's  breast  once  more  enclasp  you! 

You  never  left  my  hand,  until  the  wound, 

Opening  my  side,  colored  the  sacred  ground; 

And  through  the  night,  when  half  my  squad  lay  dying, 

I  saw,  before  I  fell,  our  foemen  flying. 

My  well-loved  rifle,  I  was  true  to  you, — 

True  to  my  oath!     Do  you  to  me  be  true! 

O  once  again  to  find  dear  comrades  living! 

To  feel  the  battle- thrill!     The  fierce,  sweet  giving, — 

All,  all  for  Italy!  a  band  of  brothers!  — 

To  hear  our  Captain's  voice,  high  over  others, — 

"Now,  sons  of  Italy,  your  foes  destroy! 

Avanti!  sangue  jreddo!     Ho!  Savoy!" 

My  gun,  so  lie  I  dreaming,  day  and  night, 

When  I  shall  bear  you  in  the  last  glad  fight! 


231 


DIAZ 

SHED  roses  through  the  soft  Italian  air, 

And  strew  his  way  with  flowers!   with  laurel 

crown! 
Hunter,  who  brought  the  Imperial  Eagle  down, 

Flapping  to  death  o'er  Alpine  summits  bare, 

And  in  the  towering  passes  slew  him  there — 

The  Austrian!  with  death  and  havoc  thrown 
From  shell-ploughed  plain  and  violated  town, 

Back  from  the  isles  of  Venice  to  despair! 

Again  the  Mincio  breathes  the  wind  of  fame, 

And  with  the  proud  Piave  rears  a  crest 
Of  victory  in  flood!  sound,  Rome,  his  name, 
DIAZ!   and  to  the  festal  world  proclaim 
Italia  Madre,  clasping  to  her  breast, 
Redeemed,  Dalmatia,  Pola  and  Trieste! 


232 


ALBERT   OF   BELGIUM 

TRUE  victor  them,  heroic  Belgian  King, 

Albert,  who  wouldst  not  traffic  in  thy  crown! 
A  Kingdom's  heirloom  goes  thy  glory  down, 

And  with  thy  people's  praise  all  countries  ring; 

Thee  and  thy  folk  shall  unborn  poets  sing, 
And  age  to  age  repeat  thy  just  renown, 
Who  held  the  peril  of  an  empire's  frown 

With  thy  land's  honor  matched,  an  idle  thing. 

But  rather  of  the  crown  that  grows  not  old 

Thy  thought,  who  others  saved,  saving  thine 

own, 
And  left  this  wisdom  to  thy  little  state: 

Put  not  thy  trust  in  armies  nor  in  gold, 

Nor  on  proud  navies  set  the  people's  throne, 
But  by  the  justice  of  thy  cause  be  great! 


233 


R.    N. 

Richard  Norton,  organiser  and  director  of  the  American 
Volunteer  Motor  Ambulance  Corps.  Began  work  in 
France,  October,  1914.  Died  in  Paris,  August  2,  1918. 

BEAUTIFUL  in  thy  death  thou  liest  down, 
Sweet,  younger  comrade  of  my  happier  days; 
Let  others  in  proud  books  thy  honors  blaze, 

Whose  marble  sleep  the  Cross  of  France  doth  crown! 

But  more  to  me  than  deeds  of  war's  renown, 
Or  any  light  upon  the  poet's  bays, 
Is  the  remembrance  of  the  sacred  ways 

We  followed,  up  the  paths  of  Beauty  flown, 

Before  us  flying.    To  another  land, 

Half  the  world  o'er,  she  lured  us,  ever  on: — 

Still  from  Art's  fragments  rose  her  pointing  hand! 
Still  in  old  verse  her  early  presence  shone! 

Now  upon  earthly  shores,  alone,  I  stand; 
But  thou,  dear  boy,  hast  to  her  bosoni  won. 


234 


LAFAYETTE 

WHAT  art  thou,  Time,  that  men  take  note  of  thee! 
A  boy  in  years,  immortal  Lafayette, 
Ere  he  was  ripe,  put  two  worlds  in  his  debt 

Forevermore!  darling  of  liberty, 

He,  like  an  angel,  crossed  the  Atlantic  sea, 

Clothed  on  with  morning,  and,  a  herald,  set 

His  shining  feet  where  light  and  darkness  met,- 

Dead  empires  and  democracies  to  be! 

When  first  his  footstep  touched  on  that  bright  soil, 
From  time  enfranchised,  was  his  life  complete; 

Years  could  not  add  to  him,  nor  take  away; 

One  of  the  spiritual  powers  that,  deathless,  toil 

In  human  hearts,  when  youth  and  glory  meet 
To  bring  the  sacred  dawn  of  Freedom's  day. 


235 


SONNETS   AND    LYRICS 


THE    OLD    HOUSE 

O  KINDLY  house,  where  time  my  soul  endows 
With  courage,  hope,  and  patience  manifold, 
How  shall  my  debt  of  love  to  thee  be  told, 

Since  first  I  heard  the  sweet-voiced  robins  rouse 

The  morn  among  thy  ancient  apple-boughs? 
Here  was  I  nourished  on  the  truths  of  old, 
Here  taught  against  new  times  to  make  me  bold, 

Memory  and  hope  thy  door-posts,  O  dear  house! 

Heaven's  blessing  rested  on  thy  dark-gray  roof, 
And  clasped  thy  children,  age  to  lapsing  age, 
Birth  and  the  grave  thy  tale  till  time's  release; 

Poverty  did  not  hold  from  thee  aloof; 
Of  lowly  good  thou  wast  the  hermitage; 
Now  falls  the  evening  light.    God  give  thee  peace ! 


239 


THE    ROCK 

SLOW  sloping  to  its  point  pyramidal, 

A  brown  rock  rises  from  the  ocean  waste; 

Seaward,  great  billows  there  incessant  haste 
And  to  their  shoreward  brethren  flash  and  call. 
I  see  the  vast  horizon  rise  and  fall, 

As  when  my  blood  with  many  raptures  raced ; 

And  on  that  pointed  rock,  by  heaven  embraced, 
I  see  a  maiden  lifted  over  all. 

As  shines  the  rose  above  inferior  flowers, 
So  sprang  her  beauty  up,  supreme  to  be; 

As  comes  the  rainbow  on  departing  showers, 
So  bloomed  and  faded  that  fair  memory; 

So  stood  she  "  on  the  top  of  happy  hours," 
And  drank  the  sunrise  glory  of  the  sea. 


240 


THE    LILIES 

EVER  the  garden  has  a  spiritual  word: 
In  the  slow  lapses  of  unnoticed  time 
It  drops  from  heaven,  or  upward  learns  to  climb, 
Breathing  an  earthly  sweetness,  as  a  bird 
Is  in  the  porches  of  the  morning  heard; 
So,  in  the  garden,  flower  to  flower  will  chime, 
And  with  the  music  thought  and  feeling  rhyme, 
And  the  hushed  soul  is  with  new  glory  stirred. 

Beauty  is  silent, — through  the  summer  day 
Sleeps  in  her  gold, — O  wondrous  sunlit  gold, 

Frosting  the  lilies'  virginal  array! 
Green,  full-leaved  walls  the  fragrant  sculpture  hold, 

Warm,  orient  blooms! — how  motionless  are  they — 
Speechless — the  eternal  loveliness  untold! 


241 


THE    MALLOWS 

How  delicate  they  stand  above  the  box, 
Against  the  fragile  breath  of  summer  seen 
Within  the  garden's  walls  of  emerald  green 

(Dull  cloistral  hedges)  and  tall  hollyhocks 

Starring  the  flowery  distance!  airy  flocks 
Of  veined  petals  hover  there,  and  lean, 
Turned  earthward,  toward  us,  in  the  hush  and  sheen, — 

Our  mallows,  once  more  in  the  well-loved  walks! 

Oh,  blest  succession  of  the  lengthening  years, 

That  brings  again  our  annual  holiday, 
And  beautifies  this  season  of  our  tears 

With  former  sights,  and  the  familiar  ray, 
Shining  upon  us  from  above  the  spheres, 

While  flower  and  shrub  keep  the  old  heavenly  way! 


242 


TO   A.   S. 

On  Receiving  His  Work  on  Milton 

GEORGIA!  the  very  name  is  flower  and  sun, 
And  bourgeons  like  the  summer!  straight  I  see 
The  robins  in  your  china-berry  tree, 

A  rosy  host,  ere  day  is  well  begun, 

And  the  red-headed  woodpeckers  that  run 
About  the  humming  poles'  telegraphy, 
Hunting  the  fancied  worm! — But  here,  with  me, 

Your  rose-japonica,  too  soon  undone, 

Lies  dead.    Me,  in  my  northern  hermitage, 

The  "  dark  "  and  "  miry  "  ways  of  March  confine, 
Who  once  was  free  of  Enna  and  Palerm: 

I  sooth  the  rugged  clime  with  bard  and  sage, 
And  mend  the  sullen  fates,  this  book  of  thine 
My  solace,  that  doth  the  inward  sight  confirm. 


243 


PICQUART 

i 

PICQUART,  no  brighter  name  on  times  to  be 
Thy  country  raises,  nor  all  Europe  vaunts, 
Thou  star  of  honor  on  the  breast  of  France, 

Soldier  of  justice;  all  men  honor  thee 

Who  to  false  honor  would'st  not  bow  the  knee, 
Nor  parley  with  the  time's  intolerance; 
Thou  art  of  those  to  whom  the  whole  world  grants 

The  meed  of  universal  memory. 

Loyal  to  more  than  to  thy  sabre  vows, 

Kissed  on  the  sword  and  hallowed  oft  with  blood ; 

True  to  thy  land's  ideal  of  equal  laws; 

Champion  of  human  rights;  about  thy  brows, 

Thy  battles  done,  how  fair  thy  laurels  bud, 
Thou  lying  dead,  a  victor  in  man's  cause! 


244 


A   LAMENT 

DIZZILY  dropping,  to  the  gulf  I  fall, 

The  bright  bolt  in  my  brain! 
Vainly  upon  the  heavenly  gods  I  call, 

Murmuring  a  mortal's  pain. 

Deep  under  deep  receives  me,  and  no  wing 
Bears  up  the  astonished  soul: — 

Only  the  fire-eyed  stars  have  ceased  to  sing. 
And  the  gray  sea  to  roll. 


245 


GOLDEN    FRAGMENTS 

"THOU    CREATIVE   SILENCE    STRANGE!  " 

HATH  the  lily  breathed  to  the  root 

What  stars  from  it  shall  shoot? 
What  bloom  life  hath  in  its  fragrant  hour, 

Hath  the  seed  told  the  flower? 
Hath  the  dark  whispered  to  the  sun 

What  heaven  shall  be  when  day  is  done? — 
Thou  Creative  Silence  strange, 

Dumbly  bear  us,  change  through  change! 

THE  EBB 

Like  echoing  cliffs  above  my  blood 
My  senses  are;   with  passion  roars 
The  ear,  eyes  darken, — life's  abud! 
But  when  love  ebbs, — Atlantic  shores 
Sorrow  not  so  when  the  sea's  flood 
Back  on  the  sea's  heart  pours. 

THE    CHEAT 

When  my  tiny  hands  would  hold 
Sticks  and  straw,  they  turned  to  gold. 
246 


GOLDEN   FRAGMENTS 

Life  reverses  fairy  law, 

The  wealth  I  hold  turns  sticks  and  straw. 

'Tis  a  cheat,  whichever  way, 

Boy  or  man,  with  gold  we  play. 

VALE! 

Rear  who  will  a  marble  pile! 

Of  death  I  know  but  this: 
No  rising  sun  gives  back  thy  smile, 

No  darkness  yields  thy  kiss. 

THE  STATUE 

All  flawed  in  beauty,  shorn  of  fate, 
Deep  droops  yon  statue,  sad  at  heart; 

Some  Greek  isle  hides  his  lovely  mate, 
And  robs  his  form  of  perfect  art. 

THE  ONYX 

Love,  the  sexton,  from  the  sod 
Gave  me  this  onyx;  prize  it,  you; 

A  carven  Eros,  graved  "  Adieu!  "— 
Who  breaks  the  image,  finds  the  god. 


247 


SONGS   UNSUNG 

YE  songs  unknown,  unuttered, 

That  flutter  in  me  unsung, 
Would  ye  had  left  my  bosom 

In  the  days  when  I  was  young! 

Then  had  ye  flown  o'er  the  sea-waste 
And  drunk  of  the  outer  foam, 

Perchance,  in  the  gray  of  the  morning, 
Ye  had  found  it,— found  it,— home! 

Had  ye  soared  in  the  azure  distance, 
Had  ye  cloven  the  sun,  above, 

Perchance,  in  the  unknown  heaven, 
Ye  had  found  it, — unknown  love! 


248 


L'ENVOY 

MY  song  is  not  for  the  old, 

Whose  day  is  done,  whose  blood  is  cold; 

Nor  for  the  safe  is  it, 

Mummies  of  wealth  and  wit; 

But  it  shall  be  understood 

Of  youth  and  the  great  life-lovers, 

Lost  adventurers  and  far  rovers, 

And  the  eagles  of  the  brood, — 

Evokers  of  diviner  powers 

Dark  in  the  ether-wave, 

Who  heap  the  couch  of  life  with  flowers 

And  line  with  love  the  grave. 


249 


BY  GEORGE  EDWARD  WOODBERRY 

One  of  the  few  poets  in  this  country  who  may  be  en 
titled  "major  "  in  their  importance  to  American  litera 
ture. — Springfield  Republican. 


The  Flight  and  Other  Poems 

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Kingdom  of  all  Souls,"  "  The  Poet  in  Italy,"  "  A  Day 
at  Castrogiovanni,"  "  The  Reed,"  etc.,  representing  the 
author's  verse  of  the  years  just  preceding  the  period 
covered  in  "The  Roamer."  $1.25  net. 

The  Torch 
Wild  Eden 

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